In District 10, incumbent Democrat Conan Smith defeated challenger Danielle Mack, taking 66% (2,563) of the votes.

There are four districts on the county board that represent parts of Ann Arbor. In the other two districts – 8 and 9 – incumbent Democrats Barbara Bergman and Leah Gunn were unopposed in the primary.

The most competitive race was in District 11, a seat now held by Jeff Irwin, who defeated Ned Staebler to win the Democratic nomination for state House District 53. There were four Democrats in that primary race: Rabhi, Fried, Alice Ralph and LuAnne Bullington. Rabhi secured 998 votes (41.81%) to Fried’s 997 (41.77%). Ralph and Bullington trailed considerably, with 281 and 108 votes, respectively. Assuming that Rabhi prevails in a possible recounting of the vote, he will face Republican Joe Baublis in November – he was unopposed in the Aug. 3 primary.

Smith will be unopposed in November. Gunn will face Republican Mark Tipping, while Bergman will face off against Republican Melinda Day. Both Day and Tipping were unopposed in the Aug. 3 primary.

The breakdown by precinct for the District 11 Democratic county board of commissioners is:

Precinct        Bullington   Fried   Rabhi  Ralph
Ann Arbor 1-1         0        5      16      2
Ann Arbor 1-2         0        0       4      4
Ann Arbor 2-3         4       39      29      4
Ann Arbor 2-4         7      121      54     21
Ann Arbor 2-5        12      162      84     32
Ann Arbor 3-1         1        0      23      1
Ann Arbor 3-2         2       17      39     29
Ann Arbor 3-3        26      234     241     87
Ann Arbor 3-4        19      167     116     28
Ann Arbor 3-7        13      143     161     27
Ann Arbor 3-8        17       92     192     39
Ann Arbor 4-1         0        0       8      2
Ann Arbor 4-2         0        1       9      0
Ann Arbor 4-3         0        3       2      1
Ann Arbor 5-1         2        3      14      2
Ann Arbor Twp Pct2    5       10       6      2

Total               108      997     998    281

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The breakdown by precinct for the District 10 Democratic county board of commissioners race:

Precinct            Mack      Smith
Ann Arbor 1-4        52         93
Ann Arbor 1-5        62        182
Ann Arbor 1-8        88        210
Ann Arbor 1-10      124        192
Ann Arbor 4-2        15         16
Ann Arbor 5-1        17         16
Ann Arbor 5-2       121        230
Ann Arbor 5-3        66        125
Ann Arbor 5-4       110        295
Ann Arbor 5-5        77        159
Ann Arbor 5-6        94        181
Ann Arbor 5-8        64        101
Ann Arbor 5-9       114        211
Ann Arbor 5-10       93        158
Ann Arbor 5-11      168        363
Ann Arbor Twp Pct 1  16         30
Scio Twp Prct 9       3          1

Total              1,284     2,563

Warren outpolled rivals Pam Byrnes and Thomas Partridge with 55.58%  – or 13,113 votes – in the race for state Senate District 18. Byrnes came in with 40.43% (9,539 votes), with Partridge at 3.85% (908 votes). The district covers the cities of Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti and the townships of Ann Arbor, Augusta, Dexter, Freedom, Lima, Lyndon, Northfield, Salem, Scio, Sharon, Superior, Sylvan, Webster and Ypsilanti. It’s currently represented by Liz Brater, who is term-limited.

Irwin’s race was even closer – he won his race against Ned Staebler with just 51% of the votes cast and, if elected in November, will be representing District 53 in the state House. Irwin brought in 5,051 votes compared to Staebler’s 4,845. The district, currently represented by Warren, takes in Ann Arbor and parts of Ann Arbor, Pittsfield and Scio townships.

In the governor’s race, Rick Snyder of Ann Arbor – who carried the field statewide for the Republican nomination – did well in Washtenaw County, getting 49% of the votes in the GOP primary. Democrat Virg Bernero beat Andy Dillon with 65% of the votes in Washtenaw County – he won the statewide nomination as well.

In November, Warren will face the winner of the state Senate Republican primary, John Hochstetler, who beat rival Gary Wellings with 59% of the votes (7,973). For the state House race in District 53, Irwin will go up against Republican Chase Ingersoll, who was unopposed in the primary.

The breakdown by precinct for the state House race:

Precinct         Irwin         Staebler
Ann Arbor 1-1      12            11
Ann Arbor 1-2       9	          1
Ann Arbor 1-3      26            10
Ann Arbor 1-4     114            72
Ann Arbor 1-5     197           110
Ann Arbor 1-6      73            60
Ann Arbor 1-7       8            13
Ann Arbor 1-8     156            99
Ann Arbor 1-10    217           142
Ann Arbor 2-2       2             1
Ann Arbor 2-3      48            34
Ann Arbor 2-4     142           215
Ann Arbor 3-1      20             4
Ann Arbor 3-2      59            28
Ann Arbor 3-3     267           366
Ann Arbor 3-4     176           174
Ann Arbor 3-5      70            68
Ann Arbor 3-6     112            86
Ann Arbor 3-7     168           185
Ann Arbor 3-8     219           136
Ann Arbor 3-9      97           149
Ann Arbor 4-1       8             4
Ann Arbor 4-2      24            19
Ann Arbor 4-3      73           145
Ann Arbor 4-4     182           211
Ann Arbor 4-5      81           126
Ann Arbor 4-6     152           176
Ann Arbor 4-7     171           258
Ann Arbor 4-8      63            79
Ann Arbor 4-9     162           201
Ann Arbor 5-1      38            29
Ann Arbor 5-2     225           205
Ann Arbor 5-3     122           108
Ann Arbor 5-4     319           195
Ann Arbor 5-5     155           129
Ann Arbor 5-6     169           183
Ann Arbor 5-7      55            44
Ann Arbor 5-8      90           113
Ann Arbor 5-9     228           182
Ann Arbor 5-10    161           156
Ann Arbor 5-11    365           301
Ann Arbor Twp 1     3             2
Ann Arbor Twp 2    10             1

Total           5,051         4,845

-

The breakdown by precinct for the state Senate race:

Precinct               Byrnes Partridge Warren

A2 City, Ward 1, Pct 1     11     0      12
A2 City, Ward 1, Pct 2      3     0       6
A2 City, Ward 1, Pct 3      7     1      30
A2 City, Ward 1, Pct 4     57     8     124
A2 City, Ward 1, Pct 5     71     3     239
A2 City, Ward 1, Pct 6     21     3     115
A2 City, Ward 1, Pct 7      8     1      15
A2 City, Ward 1, Pct 8    140     8     246
A2 City, Ward 1, Pct 9    203     5     120
A2 City, Ward 1, Pct 10   110     9     266
A2 City, Ward 2, Pct 1     50     1      35
A2 City, Ward 2, Pct 2      2     1       2
A2 City, Ward 2, Pct 3     24     1      52
A2 City, Ward 2, Pct 4    110     8     234
A2 City, Ward 2, Pct 5    180     5     132
A2 City, Ward 2, Pct 6    202     7     137
A2 City, Ward 2, Pct 7    210     4     109
A2 City, Ward 2, Pct 8    180     2      85
A2 City, Ward 2, Pct 9    166     5     115
A2 City, Ward 3, Pct 1      1     0      23
A2 City, Ward 3, Pct 2     29     0      64
A2 City, Ward 3, Pct 3    161     9     456
A2 City, Ward 3, Pct 4     93     3     258
A2 City, Ward 3, Pct 5     42    10      90
A2 City, Ward 3, Pct 6     55     7     143
A2 City, Ward 3, Pct 7     79     5     274
A2 City, Ward 3, Pct 8     81     6     262
A2 City, Ward 3, Pct 9     70    20     161
A2 City, Ward 4, Pct 1      1     0       7
A2 City, Ward 4, Pct 2      9     0      35
A2 City, Ward 4, Pct 3     61     3     159
A2 City, Ward 4, Pct 4    108     9     278
A2 City, Ward 4, Pct 5     50     8     157
A2 City, Ward 4, Pct 6    104    10     229
A2 City, Ward 4, Pct 7    142    13     282
A2 City, Ward 4, Pct 8     62    11      82
A2 City, Ward 4, Pct 9    126    13     227
A2 City, Ward 5, Pct 1     16     1      53
A2 City, Ward 5, Pct 2    100     5     344
A2 City, Ward 5, Pct 3     60     8     175
A2 City, Ward 5, Pct 4    102     6     420
A2 City, Ward 5, Pct 5     84     9     210
A2 City, Ward 5, Pct 6     79    11     271
A2 City, Ward 5, Pct 7     35     2      69
A2 City, Ward 5, Pct 8     61     5     146
A2 City, Ward 5, Pct 9     83    11     330
A2 City, Ward 5, Pct 10    90     7     222
A2 City, Ward 5, Pct 11   134    17     526
Ann Arbor Twp, Pct 1       87     2      55
Ann Arbor Twp, Pct 2      114     3     101
Augusta Twp, Pct 1         88    14     102
Augusta Twp, Pct 2         37    14      76
Augusta Twp, Pct 3         86    38     107
City of Chelsea, Pct 1    195     3      60
City of Chelsea, Pct 2    129     7      21
Dexter Twp, Pct 1         100     4      41
Dexter Twp, Pct 2         110     1      39
Dexter Twp, Pct 3          63     1      30
Freedom Twp, Pct 1         82     2      28
Lima Twp, Pct 1           109     3      37
Lyndon Twp, Pct 1         151    10      44
Northfield Twp, Pct 1     102     3      48
Northfield Twp, Pct 2      91     9      37
Northfield Twp, Pct 3      41     5      25
Pitts Chrt Twp, Pct 5       1     0       2
Pitts Chrt Twp, Pct 7       2     0       0
Salem Twp, Pct 1           17     9      54
Salem Twp, Pct 2           26    17      67
Salem Twp, Pct 3           26     5      31
Scio Twp, Pct 1           114     2      57
Scio Twp, Pct 2            64     2      26
Scio Twp, Pct 3            98     1      77
Scio Twp, Pct 4           126     1      72
Scio Twp, Pct 5            72     5      35
Scio Twp, Pct 6            63     3      38
Scio Twp, Pct 7           122     3      72
Scio Twp, Pct 8           125     0     119
Scio Twp, Pct 9           101     5      92
Sharon Twp, Pct 1          93     5      16
Superior Twp, Pct 1        87     4      61
Superior Twp, Pct 2       126    19     137
Superior Twp, Pct 3        99    14      67
Superior Twp, Pct 4        69    18      57
Superior Twp, Pct 5        90     9     107
Sylvan Twp, Pct 1         156     7      29
Webster Twp, Pct 1        118     3      55
Webster Twp, Pct 2         61     1      23
Webster Twp, Pct 3         58     6      29
Ypsi City, Ward 1, Pct 1   73    24     107
Ypsi City, Ward 1, Pct 2   81    15     128
Ypsi City, Ward 1, Pct 3   46    10      48
Ypsi City, Ward 2, Pct 1   98     6     153
Ypsi City, Ward 2, Pct 2   85    11     174
Ypsi City, Ward 2, Pct 3   66     4     182
Ypsi City, Ward 2, Pct 4   11     2      11
Ypsi City, Ward 3, Pct 1   16     1      20
Ypsi City, Ward 3, Pct 2   79     6     159
Ypsi City, Ward 3, Pct 3  113    24     174
Ypsi Twp, Pct 1            45     7      57
Ypsi Twp, Pct 2            57    17     101
Ypsi Twp, Pct 3            45    12      62
Ypsi Twp, Pct 4            60     8      95
Ypsi Twp, Pct 5            38     6      33
Ypsi Twp, Pct 6            19     4      24
Ypsi Twp, Pct 7            36    11      49
Ypsi Twp, Pct 8            31     8      56
Ypsi Twp, Pct 9            73     7      93
Ypsi Twp, Pct 10           37     5      48
Ypsi Twp, Pct 11           58    18      44
Ypsi Twp, Pct 12           33    11      29
Ypsi Twp, Pct 13           56     7      76
Ypsi Twp, Pct 14           78    17      97
Ypsi Twp, Pct 15           26     3      30
Ypsi Twp, Pct 16           18     2      16
Ypsi Twp, Pct 17           98    10     157
Ypsi Twp, Pct 18           34     2      69
Ypsi Twp, Pct 19           60    10      94
Ypsi Twp, Pct 20           60     9      73
Ypsi Twp, AVCB 1          291    60     245
Ypsi Twp, AVCB 2          246    32     208
                        9,539   908  13,113

Sign outside the Michigan Union Building.

[If you're still doing your homework on candidates, click here for The Chronicle's election coverage to date.]

Polls are open until 8 p.m. We’ll report results as we hear about them, filed on The Chronicle’s Civic News Ticker.

If you see us out and about, give a shout. We’ll shout back. The fun starts after the jump.

7:30 a.m. Ward 4, Precinct 6: Cobblestone Farm (2781 Packard). Incumbent Margie Teall is greeting early voters. She reports that upon arrival, she found that signs for her campaign and for mayor John Hieftje had been moved into the middle of the nearby baseball field. She moved them back to the polling place entrance. A woman walking past says she voted for Teall and Hieftje, saying they were the “voice of reason and stability” – she liked how things were going with the city, and didn’t see any reason to change.

Jennifer Hall, housing manager for the city/county Office of Community Development, arrives – she says she’s there “just as a member of the voting public.” A man wearing a Pink Floyd T-shirt emerges from the polling place, located inside Cobblestone Farm’s main building. He says that any morning is a good one when it starts with the democratic process. Teall reveals that she was a huge Pink Floyd fan in high school and college. Rock on.

It’s worth noting that Cobblestone is the only polling place, at least to The Chronicle’s knowledge, where you can also find pigs rolling in mud, chickens and goats.

7:45 a.m. Ward 5, Precinct 2: Bach School (600 W. Jefferson). Voted as number 32. City attorney arrives as part of his election day inspection tour.

8:05 a.m. Ward 4, Precinct 5: St. Clare Church/Temple Beth Emeth (2309 Packard). It’s sprinkling now, and people are walking briskly from their cars to the polling place. One volunteer from Ned Staebler’s campaign for state representative is handing out literature. When she offers it to a voter who’s passing by, he says “I know who he is – that family goes back a long way here.” He doesn’t indicate whether he’s a supporter. The volunteer reports that she’s been out since 6:30 a.m. Another Staebler volunteer back at Cobblestone Farm had been out since 4 a.m., walking the district with about a dozen others to hang campaign literature on doorknobs.

One voter tells us she voted for Teall and Hieftje because she likes their positions on issues. Another voter later reports our encounter on Twitter. It doesn’t appear that anyone is using the small St. Francis of Assisi chapel to reflect on their decisions.

8:15 a.m. Ward 5, Precinct 1: Ann Arbor District Library (343 S. Fifth). Stephen Ranzini is standing on the correct side of 100-foot line wearing a Jeff Irwin button on his tie. Ken Nieman, the library’s associate director, comes out to remove campaign signs from the library flower boxes on the William Street side of library building. That’s not the public right of way, he says. Signs in the tree pits survive.

8:30 a.m. Ward 4, Precinct 1: Michigan Union (530 S. State). Dead pants. Two voters so far.

8:35 a.m. Ward 4, Precinct 3: University of Michigan Coliseum (Fifth & Hill). The sound of a jackhammer comes from the vicinity of the nearby Fingerle Lumber yard. You can hear it from inside the polling place because the doors and windows are wide open – there’s no air-conditioning here, and it’s hot. One poll worker says that in the winter, they bring duct tape to put around the window frames to keep the cold air out. So far, 32 people have voted. No one is using the exercise equipment that’s crammed into the room.

One poll worker describes the Mary Street polling place, which he says is used as an aviary when not set up for voters. It’s only a few blocks away and is worth a look, he says.

8:50 a.m. Ward 4, Precinct 2: Mary Street Polling Place (926 Mary St.). Upon arrival at Mary Street, we encounter half of the six people who’ve voted so far. They include Julie Weatherbee and Bob Droppleman, who help fill us in on the history of the small, ivy-covered building – it’s the only remaining city polling place that is still in use for its original purpose. When not used on election day, it’s rented to the Bird Center of Washtenaw County – Weatherbee says they brought a baby robin there once. The bird folks have to clean the room before election day, and poll worker Tom Bletcher reports that you can smell the bleach.

Later, Weatherbee sends us a photo of a note she’d described during our conversation, reflecting the bird/voter cohabitation.

9:30 a.m. Ward 1, Precinct 3: Community High School (401 N. Division): Ten voters so far, but none of them in sight. A city clerk staffer drops off absentee voter ballots for scanning. There are no separate AV counting boards this cycle. Unrelated to that, a poll worker does a few quick tap dancing steps – in sneakers, but you can tell he knows what he’s doing.

The clerk staff reports several humidity-related issues citywide with voting machines. The humidity makes the paper ballots “puff up.” She also reports  16 voters at the Community Center where she’s just dropped AV ballots. Election staff commence feeding AV ballots into machine. There are six ballots.  Always heartening to see democracy unfold inside the walls of “Commie High.”

11:15 a.m. Ward 1, Precincts 5 & 6: Northside Elementary (912 Barton Drive). It’s hot in the school gym, where two precincts are handling voters. A poll worker from Precinct 6 says that for as long as anyone can remember, the precinct tables had been in the same spots – until this year. Precinct 6 was told to set up in the former location of Precinct 5, and vice versa. No one there knows why. As he’s relating this fact, a voter walks in and stops by the table. As she overhears his description, she says, “Oh, I’m over there, then!”

Because it has more full-time residents – as opposed to students – Precinct 5′s turnout is higher: 97 voters at this point, compared to 76 for Precinct 6. Those tallies include 51 absentee ballots that have been counted for Precinct 5, and 32 for Precinct 6.

Upon hearing that we’re headed to Arrowwood next, a poll worker says, “Tell Bill that Phyllis says hello!” Her husband works the poll there: “He’s the cute guy with his slippers on.”

11:35 a.m. Ward 1, Precinct 10: Arrowwood Hills Community Center (2566 Arrowwood Trail). We’re momentarily flummoxed – no one here is wearing slippers. Bill is identified and reports that he didn’t bring slippers today – his brown shoes look plenty comfortable, though. There’s air-conditioning here, and a Foosball table, but no one is playing. They’ve had 151 voters so far, plus about 55 uncounted absentee ballots. Mayoral candidate Patricia Lesko had voted there earlier.

A young girl, maybe 7 years old, walks in with some adults. A poll worker asks if she’ll be voting today. When she shyly shakes her head no, he says they’ll give her an “I Voted!” sticker anyway.

11:55 a.m. Ward 1, Precinct 9 and Ward 2, Precinct 6: Clague Middle School (2616 Nixon). Another hot school gym. Standing on the sidewalk outside the school is Ward 1 city council candidate Sumi Kailasapathy and a volunteer with her campaign, along with a worker from the Pam Byrnes state Senate campaign. As we’re talking, the Byrnes campaigner gets a call on his cell phone – it’s a redirect from a robocall that started Monday afternoon. Callers get an automated message saying the Democrat Byrnes is being supported by Republican Dick DeVos. The message asks them to press a number to register their objection – and the call is then redirected to one of Byrnes’ campaign staffers. The worker reports he’s had dozens of calls starting Monday around 4 p.m. While we’re there, he gets three more.

Turnout is heavier here: 201 voters in the Ward 1 precinct, including absentee ballots. For the Ward 2 precinct, there have been 128 walk-in voters, plus roughly 80 absentee ballots that hadn’t yet been counted. Kailasapathy says her campaign has registered a lot of new voters, and that they’ve seen a strong showing from the ward’s Chinese residents. A fire truck rolls up and two firefighters get out to chat with Kailasapathy and her campaign volunteer.

12:25 p.m. Ward 1, Precinct 7: University of Michigan Pierpont Commons (2101 Bonisteel). You have to walk past a sushi bar to get to this polling place, and though there are dozens of students in the dining area of this north campus building, we encounter no one in the walk down the long hallway to get to the room. Here, there have been only 11 voters so far, plus another 11 absentee ballots. Poll workers reminisce about the crush of lines they had during the November 2008 presidential election. Until this year, the polling place was located at Bursley Hall, a student dorm. Earlier this year, university officials asked the city to move its polling places out of the dorms, citing security concerns.

One of the polling workers remembers a talk The Chronicle gave to the Elderwise program a year ago. She asks if we still think there’ll be another daily print newspaper in Ann Arbor within the next five years. Did we say that? Yes, we did. Another poll worker offers that maybe The Chronicle will be such a publication. You never know.

1 p.m. Ward 5, Precinct 3: Second Baptist Church (850 Red Oak Drive). An apparent newcomer to the state opens with the question: “Does this state have open primaries?” He wants to know if he needs to be registered to vote as a member of a particular party in order to participate. The answer: No, he doesn’t. Also, there’s a slight alarm at needing to “apply” to vote. Assurance is given that the application form is separated from the paper ballot.

Poll workers are handling a spoiled ballot from someone who apparently accidentally filled in votes for both primaries. The voter must fold it in half and place it in a special envelope, then re-try with a new ballot. Voting is a success.

Poll workers are “keeping their wits sharp during lulls” by plotting the extermination of the flies, which are buzzing about. One poll worker issues an edict that the flies should be caught but not killed. A cup is located. Around 90 people – but no insects – have voted so far.

1:15 p.m. Ward 5, Precincts 4 & 5: Slauson Middle School (1019 W. Washington). Jeff Irwin, who’s running for state representative, and Lou Glorie, a city council candidate, are both greeting voters in the parking lot, standing in the direct sun. Irwin says the work to place door hangers on homes went through the night last night. He’s being judicious with his time on election day, allocating time for polling locations for the morning, noon, and evening “rush,” but continuing to knock on doors at other times.

He greets a voter, who tells him that she thinks we’ll get good representation with either him or with his opponent, Ned Staebler. Irwin says he’s not there to say anything bad about Ned. The voter says she’s not heard Ned say anything bad about him, either, and that it’s been a good campaign.

Inside the polls, the first question to voters causes some to hesitate: “5-4 or 5-5?” The precinct maps on the wall help solve the problem.

3:15 p.m. Ward 5, Precinct 11: Forsythe Middle School (1655 Newport). There’s a steady flow of voters here – 358 have come through in person, plus 163 absentee ballots so far. One man asks if he can walk around the school a bit. He says he was a student there when it was MYA – after he gets the OK to take a stroll down the hall, someone asks, “What’s MYA?” They’re told by another voter that it stands for Middle Years Alternative. The man returns and says, “I don’t recognize anything.” It’s apparently been remodeled. We wonder if he recognizes the image of Lúthien Tinúviel that’s been painted on the wall.

A couple walks in. The poll worker looks at their matching last names and jokes, “Do you two know each other?” The woman replies: “57 years as of Aug. 14 – if he makes it!” They both look hale and hearty.

It’s a sign of veteran poll workers that several of them have thick seat cushions for their metal chairs. One worker says that by 5:30 p.m., “it really makes a difference.” They’ve also brought snacks – in this case, fresh green beans from one of the worker’s gardens. She offers one to her co-worker. “No thanks,” he says. “I’m driving.” She then offers some beans to The Chronicle. We gratefully accept the crudité .

3:40 p.m. Ward 5, Precinct 9: Haisley Elementary School (825 Duncan). The trash can in the lobby of Haisley is littered with crumpled campaign literature – Warren, Irwin, Staebler – plus some empty coffee cups and the backs of those “I Voted!” stickers. There have been about 250 voters, plus another 75 or so absentee ballots.

Some kids arrive with their moms, and get a little rambunctious. A poll worker tries to divert their attention to a tank of goldfish. The children aren’t much interested, but The Chronicle is. The aerator is a skull that opens its mouth to release air bubbles. Nice.

4 p.m. Ward 1, Precinct 8: Skyline High School (2552 N. Maple). It’s a long walk from the parking lot to the school entrance, up some stairs to the second level then down a long hallway to Skyline’s cafeteria. We encounter Marianne Rzepka, The Chronicle’s garden columnist who’s working the polls. She reports that 336 people have voted, including absentees.

One voter is ready to insert her ballot into the voting machine when she’s told that you can’t vote in both the Democratic and Republican primary. “Who’s idea is that?” she says. “I’d rather not vote!” After some discussion, poll workers suggest that they “spoil” her ballot (the term used when the ballot is voided). They tell her she doesn’t have to vote for every race, and that is enough to convince her to vote again, picking just one of the parties. “I’m not a party person,” she says.

4:40 p.m. Ward 5, Precinct 10: Abbot Elementary School (2670 Sequoia). Yet another stuffy school gym – this one has skylights, and sun in streaming in. One of the election workers is sitting on the floor, processing absentee ballots. They’ve counted 272 votes so far.

A voter brings in an absentee ballot she’s completed, hoping to turn it in. She’s told she can’t do it there – it has to go directly to the city clerk’s office. But they offer to “spoil” the ballot so that she could just vote in person while she’s there, and she agrees.

Five o’clock approaches, and things pick up – there’s actually a line of people waiting to vote, for the first time in all the polling places we’ve visited.

Outside, a worker for Jeff Irwin’s campaign looks tired and hot, but remains upbeat. He’s wearing an Irwin T-shirt, with another, non-political one slung over his shoulders. He has to put it on over his campaign shirt whenever he goes inside to check polling numbers. He said they’ve been heartened by the turnout in the precinct, but acknowledges that it’s a tight race, and it will be a long night.

7:00 p.m. With an hour of voting left, that’s over and out for The Ann Arbor Chronicle from the polls. Now for a quick rest before collecting up results.

Results for elections:

• A live Google Spreadsheet we’ll update with results from the field: [link]
• The Chronicle’s Civic News Ticker
• Washtenaw County clerk’s website of results: [link]

Home plate at Allmendinger Park. It's been scuffed up, even though it hasn't endured a primary election.

On Monday, Washtenaw County clerk Larry Kestenbaum told The Chronicle that he didn’t have a specific forecast in terms of percentage turnout, but he noted that the relatively high turnout he’d been expecting didn’t seem to be panning out in the absentee ballot application and return rates. For the city of Ann Arbor, we’ve been tracking the city clerk’s absentee ballot return reports, and through July 31, 3,092 had been returned for today’s election. That compares with 2,578 absentee ballots cast in August 2006 and 2,803 in August 2008. It’s certainly an upward trend.

But we’re more interested in draft-horse governance than thoroughbred races (and I promise we won’t beat that analogy like a dead horse too much longer). So we decided to see what kind of base-level knowledge people in Ann Arbor had about their elected officials. Base level, as in: Who represents you on the city council?

And what better day than election day to present the results of our admittedly informal survey.

We didn’t ask about the mayor-ship in our survey, or state-level races. But this column is as good a venue as any to speculate about how the gubernatorial horse race on the Republican side might affect the Ann Arbor Democratic primary for mayor.

That’s like suggesting that the games in the American League West Division could have an impact on the outcome of games in the National League East. But there’s got to be a way to transition out of this awful horse race analogy. And a pennant race, yeah, that just might be the ticket.

Informal Survey on Council Representation

[For our readers who aren't familiar with the cultural reference of the headline, "Who's on First" is an Abbott and Costello comedy routine that trades on misunderstandings arising from words like "who" and "what." Watch it on YouTube.]

During the month of July, Chronicle intern Rebecca Friedman went out to ask people a simple question: Who represents you on city council? She surveyed nearly 100 people at several locations: the Ann Arbor Summer Festival’s Top of the Park, Ann Arbor July 4th parade, Townie Street Party and Ann Arbor art fairs.

The first filter for respondents was finding out if the person lived in Ann Arbor. Several people believed they lived in Ann Arbor, based on their Ann Arbor mailing address and the fact that their kids went to Ann Arbor public schools. But when asked to identify where they lived on a map, it turned out they actually lived in Scio or Pittsfield townships. So they were off the hook.

Of the 94 people that Rebecca surveyed who did live in Ann Arbor, 14% could name both current council representatives. Another 16% could name one councilmember. I should add that we were very generous in this tally – if a Fifth Warder said “Mike!” but couldn’t come up with Mike Anglin’s last name, we counted that in the “Knows” category. We worded the question so that it wouldn’t indicate that there’s more than one councilmember per ward. In some cases, people were surprised to learn there are two.

So 30% of our sampling knew at least one of their city council representatives. Is that good? If you’re a glass-half-full kind of person, maybe so. Of course, that leaves 70% of residents who had absolutely no idea. (And if we’d asked who represents them on the Washtenaw County board of commissioners, I’m guessing the percentage of “have absolutely no clue” responses would have been significantly higher. Do you know?)

Chronicle intern Rebecca Friedman.

Interestingly, Rebecca reported that there were some people who were supremely confident they knew their councilmembers – until she asked for specific names. A couple of them got a bit defensive at this point, still asserting that they did, in fact, know who represented them. Perhaps if your self-image includes the characteristic “engaged community member” or “political activist” and that balloon is popped by your inability to dredge up a basic fact, well, I’d be grumpy too. Or maybe their synapses just weren’t firing quickly that day – it happens.

Wards 1 and 2 did well in terms of the number of the people who knew both of their council representatives – five people from Ward 1 could name both Sabra Briere and Sandi Smith as their councilmembers, and five from Ward 2 named both Tony Derezinski and Stephen Rapundalo. Two people from Ward 5 knew both Carsten Hohnke and Mike Anglin.

Only one person from Ward 4 could come up with both Marcia Higgins and Margie Teall as their council reps. No one from Ward 3 named both councilmembers – Christopher Taylor and Stephen Kunselman.

To confirm that they were naming the correct council rep, Rebecca also asked people to identify which ward they lived in. Often, people didn’t know – but were able to confirm the ward by indicating where they lived on a map. But it’s also interesting that of the 41 people she surveyed who knew what ward they lived in, 17 couldn’t name a council rep.

Rebecca also collected some comments from the people she interviewed. Here’s a sampling:

• “How embarrassing.” (This person didn’t know either council rep.)
• “I should know these things. I’ll go look that up.” (Here’s where to find out.)
• “Yes…don’t I? (pause) Mike… I should know the last name.” (It’s Anglin.)
• “Uh, I can visualize the face…” (But not the name, apparently.)
• “I know… what’s his name?” (The person then guessed Chris Easthope, a former city councilmember who was elected 15th District Court judge in November 2008.)
• A Ward 3 resident: “I’m sick of it all so I stopped paying attention.”
• A Ward 1 resident who knew both current council reps also knew that the challenger in the Aug. 3 primary had a “long Indian name that starts with a K.” (Her name is Sumi Kailasapathy.)
• “I’m sure they’re Democrats and I always vote Republican.” (True for the primary, but stay tuned for the November election.)
• A Ward 2 resident confidently said they knew their council representative was Joan Lowenstein. (Lowenstein last served on council in 2008.)
• A Ward 5 resident had this to say: “Mike Anglin is the only one that represents me. Sabra Briere represents me but I’m not in her ward. Carsten Hohnke is in my ward but he doesn’t represent me.”
• “I’ve lived here for twenty-some years and I don’t know.”
• “Don’t know. I’ll vote for whoever is not in office.”
• From a Ward 4 resident: “They drop a lot of stuff at my door and I just throw it in the garbage.”

What can we make of this? Well, I’ll say again that this was in no way a rigorous survey – our goal was to get a sense of how informed residents are about their city council reps, but other than the general observation of “not very,” I wouldn’t go much further.

But I would go back to the comment by the Ward 3 resident, who said “I’m sick of it all so I stopped paying attention.” I totally get the “sick of it all” sentiment, especially given the bizarre behavior we’ve witnessed during this particular primary election cycle. But consider this a plea to start paying attention – both for residents, and for councilmembers who could do a better job at reaching out to their constituents.

Paying attention locally is our mission is here at The Chronicle. We hope we’re making it easier for you to do the same.

Michigan Gubernatorial Politics, Ann Arbor Mayoral Primary

One school of thought we’ve heard through the community as election season has headed to the primaries is that the Republican nominee for governor will probably win the November election. It’s like when every inside-baseball fan knows that the winner of the National League playoffs – whoever it is – is going to win the World Series against whatever team the American League throws up against them.

What difference does the Republican nominee make for the predominantly Democratic Ann Arbor? Plenty. Many voters who think that the Republican nominee is likely to win in November, would like a say in who that nominee is. Of the Republicans contesting the race – Mike Bouchard, Mike Cox, Tom George, Pete Hoekstra, Rick Snyder – many local Democrats would like to cross over and vote in the Republican primary for Snyder, who’s well known here.

But one reason potential Democratic-to-Republican cross-over voters are hesitating is that it means they wouldn’t be able to vote in the Democratic mayoral primary, which is contested between 10-year incumbent John Hieftje and Patrica Lesko. There’s enough doubt in their minds about Hieftje’s re-election that they’re staying home with the Dems so they can vote for him. Others are taking what they think is a small risk that Lesko wins and crossing over to vote for Snyder.

On the flip side, some potential cross-over voters from the Republican side find Lesko’s message about focusing on the basics appealing. But some of them are still inclined to stay home and vote in the Republican primary, because of the importance of the choice for governor.

The Ann Arbor mayor’s race is further complicated this year, though, because of the large number of people who say they’re not happy with their candidate of choice. Many likely Lesko voters say they aren’t pleased to be voting for her, but at least she’s not Hieftje. And voters who’ll likely cast a vote for Hieftje aren’t happy about it, but at least he’s not Lesko. It’s like Ann Arbor voters have become the political equivalent of Mets fans – they actually think the Mets suck, but at least the Mets aren’t the Yankees.

In baseball as in voting it’s easy to tell who won – you look at the score. But in voting, there’s always a spin you can give the numbers, just like when you grip the ball across the seams. One record that Hieftje’s supporters often cite as point of pride is the fact that he’s never lost a single precinct in 10 years worth of elections. If that pattern stays intact, it’d be hard to spin a Hieftje victory as anything but decisive.

If Lesko receives more votes than Hieftje, of course, that’s an outright victory. But short of a majority, to claim at least a moral victory of any kind she’ll need to do appreciably better than the anybody-but-Hieftje vote as reflected in the last two Democratic primaries: 31% for Tom Wall in 2008, and 30% for Wendy Woods in 2006.

This kind of speculation is all academic at this point – it’s impossible to predict. What do they say in baseball? That’s why we play the game.

Chronicle file photo of Hank Beekley with his team of draft horses – a Belgian and a Shire – as they disk the field on the St. Joseph Mercy Hospital campus. They were preparing the acreage for gardens that will supply fresh vegetables for the hospital cafeteria and for a farmers market. As non-city residents, neither the Belgian nor the Shire is contesting a city council race this election cycle.

On the upside, elections really make it clear that we live in a democracy. They elicit a spurt of energy and passion from the electorate, as voters cheer on their candidates like racing fans at Northville Downs cheer their horse-racing picks. If enthusiasm among voters for civic affairs were sustained throughout the rest of the year, that would really be something. That’s when we expect the thoroughbreds who win the horse race of the election to transform into draft horses and do the work that matters. But cheers for the draft horse are rare, and it only takes a few days post-election for most residents to lose interest until the next campaign.

Part of the election horse race is endorsements by news publications. At this point, I hasten to add – somewhat defensively – that my tenure at The News as opinion editor did not coincide with either of the Bush endorsements, nor with the now-infamous non-endorsement in the McCain/Obama race of 2008. That’s not to assign responsibility for those endorsements to the opinion editor at the time – that’s not how endorsements at newspapers are determined. They result from a decision made by an editorial board, not just one person.

I had always questioned the value of endorsements, and my work on The News’ editorial board re-enforced those doubts. There were three of us – the publisher, editor-in-chief and opinion editor – who made the decisions, sometimes after a great deal of discussion, but often not. Our decisions relied primarily on information gathered by News reporters, along with relatively brief editorial board meetings with those candidates who were gracious enough to endure our questions. Often, it was the one and only time some of us had ever met the candidates – even those who were already elected officials.

It should be obvious that I’m not proud of any of that. Nor do I imagine that journalists who participate in similar endorsement processes at other publications can take much professional pride in adding to the electoral horse race in this way. So I’m glad that as a matter of policy at The Ann Arbor Chronicle, we’ve decided not to make endorsements.

We didn’t make the decision lightly. Readers have asked about it – some even encouraging us to make endorsements – because that’s what serious publications do, right? And ironically, I’m much better informed about the incumbents than I ever was as an editor at The News. I have sat through scores of public meetings since we launched The Chronicle nearly two years ago, and edited scores more reports of meetings that someone else survived.

So why isn’t The Chronicle making endorsements? Actually, we already do. We endorse democracy, and independent thought. We make that endorsement by reporting out in detail on our local government in action. We care about why and how and when elected and appointed officials make decisions, and we convey that information to Chronicle readers. When you understand what’s happening in the government that your local tax dollars support, you’re equipped with a foundation from which to make your own decisions.

Your vote will be informed by other things as well, of course. I’d bet that most of us can point to a single main reason for why we vote for a particular candidate over another. Maybe it’s because you’re voting against a candidate, rather than really for their opponent. Maybe you know them to be a liar. Maybe you disagree with too many of their policy positions. Maybe you’ve just received way too many pieces of campaign literature from a candidate, and you can’t imagine a candidate who’s spending that kind of money to get your vote is the kind of person you want representing you. All you know is: Not that one.

Or maybe you’re actually voting for the candidate whose oval you blacken on election day. Maybe that candidate voted for an ordinance you wanted to see passed. Or maybe that candidate voted against a controversial residential development you also opposed. Or maybe that candidate knocked on your door and you liked the way she shook your hand and looked you in the eye. Maybe it’s because your guy is a glass-eating clown.

Money, in the form of campaign contributions, is one type of endorsement that’s useful for keeping track of the horse race. The basic horse race question is: Who raised more money? But it’s worth reflecting in more detail about who’s giving money to the candidates – are the contributors people or organizations that you know and respect? Are you impressed by the ability to raise sizable amounts – or do you find that distasteful? Are you more impressed by the number of people who have unrecognizable names making small donations, or by large donations from recognized opinion leaders in the community?

For candidates in city of Ann Arbor races, Chronicle intern Hayley Byrnes converted the scanned .pdf campaign finance filings on the county clerk’s website to something more tractable: [Excel workbook, one worksheet per candidate] [searchable .pdf file listing all contributions ]

The same organizations that contribute to campaigns often make explicit endorsements of their own – for candidates, it’s just another way to tell voters that they’re winning the horse race. Does it matter to you that one candidate gets more endorsements than another? Or does it just matter what kind of endorsements they’re getting – labor, business, or environmental groups? One Ann Arborite once told me that she simply votes for whatever candidates the local chapter of the Sierra Club endorsed. To which I said, “Really?? Huh.”

But, in fact, unless we know the candidates well, most of us probably do have just one equally marginal reason why we vote for them. And in the primary elections, when political ideologies of candidates generally align, there are only a few races in which there’s a clear choice. Many times, honestly, it’s a crap shoot.

So read as much as you can – you can find The Chronicle’s reports of primary election forums here. Talk to as many people as you can, watch where the money comes from, and pick your own reason to vote for a candidate. But don’t rely on just one source to tell you who to vote for, especially not a newspaper’s editorial board.

And more importantly, do all those things after the election is over, too. Paying attention when the people you elect are doing the work you’ve chosen them to do is the best way to ensure that your vote counts.

Elections are horse races, but governance is when the fields get plowed. And that’s something we all should endorse.

Mary Morgan is publisher of The Ann Arbor Chronicle.

Though the new $47 million police-courts building is on schedule to be completed in December, it’s still a major issue in Ann Arbor’s current mayoral campaign.

Challenger Patricia Lesko asserts the project is not just a waste of money; she claims the decision to build it is a prime example of what’s wrong with the current mayor and city council.

“Emails [between council members] came out that show [mayor John Hieftje] was possibly intimidated into withholding his veto by the majority on city council who composed an email saying if you veto this, we will make it so that you can’t get anything passed,” Lesko told The Ann Arbor Observer in a June interview. “It’s like blackmail, right? Extortion? Which is the word we’re using nowadays?”

Hieftje rejected the challenger’s accusation in an Ann Arbor Observer interview shortly afterward. “If you look at the email, you’ll see that it was never sent – at least not to me.”

Leigh Greden, the former councilmember who wrote the 2007 email in question, likewise denied Lesko’s charge that he blackmailed the mayor. “Absolutely not,” Greden wrote in an email to The Observer. “I drafted that email, but the email was never sent to the mayor. The mayor didn’t even know the email existed – and tellingly, it took about a year before the mayor decided to support the project.”

However, a look at the actual email makes it clear that the draft cited by Greden in his recent interview was not of text to be sent by email to the mayor. Instead, it was a draft of talking points for a meeting that Greden wrote should take place between councilmembers and the mayor: “Here’s what I propose. We schedule a mtng with him this week. We say the following: …”

The Ann Arbor Chronicle’s city council meeting report from April 19, 2010 lays out some historical details behind the 2007 Greden email to provide context for some of Hieftje’s remarks made at the April council meeting.

Greden’s initial draft of the talking points included the following message to Hieftje:

If you follow through with your veto, we are prepared, as a group, to vote against all committee appointments, Agenda items, resolutions, budget amendments and other projects you bring to the City Council for the foreseeable future. We constitute a working majority of City Council. We will not announce this to the public in order to give you the chance to do the right thing w/o our position being made public. The choice is yours.

The talking points suggested by Greden could have been conveyed easily in private meetings between the mayor and the council members who supported the police-courts building.

It’s certain that the meetings happened. “Ann Arbor Mayor John Hieftje has backed away from his promised veto,” the Ann Arbor News wrote in March 2007. “Hieftje said Monday that after meeting privately with various council members that he expects the council will reconsider the vote and bring it back up at next week’s meeting.”

The actual vote to be reconsidered, and which Hieftje had threatened publicly to veto, had been for the professional services contract with the architect. As predicted by Hieftje in The News article, the vote was in fact brought back for reconsideration by councilmembers Marcia Higgins, Margie Teall and Wendy Woods, who had voted for it on the prevailing side.

The reconsideration of the vote resulted in an amendment to the resolution that split approval of the architect’s fees, postponing approval of the bulk of the amount for two months until the council’s second meeting in May. The professional services contract was then approved by the council in May, but with Hieftje and three others still voting against it.

If Greden and the “working majority” communicated the drafted sentiments to the mayor by email or in person, it could certainly be analyzed as Hieftje getting strong-armed by the council majority not to use his veto. But Greden, now executive director of governmental and community relations at Eastern Michigan University, denied anything like that happened.

“I never threatened the Mayor about the police/courts project or anything else,” he wrote in a July 2010 email. “The Mayor and anybody paying attention was well aware that I supported the project because it was a wise investment and we’d exhausted all other ideas. I repeatedly encouraged John to support the project and worked closely with him to make sure the finances were viable.”

Though Joan Lowenstein, then city councilmember, acknowledged meetings took place between the mayor and the council’s “working majority,” the Downtown Development Authority’s recently elected chairperson likewise denied anything nefarious occurred. “I don’t remember anyone ever threatening,” she said in a recent telephone interview. “I certainly did not. As with most issues, a lot of us talked to him privately, and I did speak to him privately about it.”

Hieftje himself did not deny he met privately with councilmembers to discuss the police-courts building. But he categorically denied anyone blackmailed him.

“I meet with Council Members all the time and did so throughout that year,” the mayor wrote in a July 2010 email. “There was the usual back and forth on issues with some council members expressing their support for the building over and over but no threats to block anything I wanted. The whole premise is ridiculous.

“What was it I wanted?” Hieftje asked rhetorically. “Can you imagine members of council blocking proposals to make the city more energy efficient because they wanted to build a new Police/Courts building? Would they try to block proposals to make the city more accommodating for pedestrians and cyclists? I want the city to constantly strive for greater efficiency in all its operations. Would they block that?”

In a comment he left on the now defunct website ArborUpdate in March 2008, Hieftje seems to suggest that back then, his answer to the rhetorical question might have been yes:

Council veterans supported me in devoting more funding and staff support to non-motorized transit. They supported the Greenbelt Campaign and the Clean Communities Program. They supported the Mayor’s Green Energy Challenge and the commuter rail proposal and One Percent for Art. Disagreeing with a majority of council members whom I respect is one thing, a veto is yet another. A veto would make it harder for me to work with the majority of council members on other issues. Frustration over this issue could spill over into other council business even more than it already has.

But Hieftje’s current summary on whether a threat caused him to re-think his veto concludes with a threat of his own: “I have had the good fortune to work with council members who would never threaten me with anything,” the mayor wrote. “If someone ever does they will discover that the outcome will not be to their liking.”

About the author: Jim Leonard’s byline appears regularly for The Ann Arbor Observer.

Bill Kinley moderated a mayoral debate at University Commons on Monday between incumbent John Hieftje and challenger Patricia Lesko.

Kinley, a University Commons resident and local developer, moderated Monday’s event, which drew about 50 people to listen as incumbent mayor John Hieftje and challenger Patricia Lesko answered questions for an hour on a range of topics, from Argo Dam and Fuller Road Station to the city budget and possible income tax.

It’s the latest in a series of exchanges between the two candidates, as the Democrats head into next week’s Aug. 3 primary election. [See Chronicle coverage: "Ann Arbor Forums: The More, The Mayor-ier" and "Ann Arbor Dems Primary: Mayoral Race."]

After introducing the candidates, Kinley cautioned that the residents there are “a group of wordy people.” They know that “platform” and “platitude” derive from the French word “plat,” he said, “so if you can keep platitudes to a minimum, you’ll find the reception here is much more responsive.”

Each candidate was given two minutes to answer the question. The first person who answered was also given the option of an additional one minute response. Questions had been developed by Kinley and the program committee for University Commons.

Selling Parkland

Question: Ann Arbor is known for its parks, but lacks adequate funds to maintain them. What is your position on selling the Huron Hills golf course or other designated parkland, in order to raise funds for park maintenance?

Lesko on Selling Parkland

The question contains a fallacious assumption, she said – that the city doesn’t have enough money to support its parks. Lesko said she used the word “support” deliberately, because that’s what the city should do. The current administration, however, is under the impression that some parks are “bloodsuckers,” she said, sucking the life blood out of the city’s $300 million budget. There’s a belief that the parks need to support themselves, that they’re “deadbeats.” That’s not the case.

There is a millage for parks and a greenbelt millage, she noted – a double commitment to supporting parks. If she were mayor, selling Huron Hills would not be an option. It’s being made unprofitable by an accounting sleight of hand, she said, and that’s not acceptable. It’s an historic golf course.

Lesko said that she doesn’t golf, but she swims, bikes, kayaks and does a variety of recreational activity. This community should have a wide variety of sporting and recreational facilities available, that are supported by taxpayers. The city shouldn’t have to raise revenues to do that – residents pay property taxes that are already relatively high, she said.

Hieftje on Selling Parkland

Hieftje said he would never advocate selling the golf course, and that the city is managing the parks pretty well. The mowing schedule has been changed from 14 days to 19 days, he noted, and unfortunately there’s been more rain so the grass has been growing faster and people can see the difference.

He pointed out that councilmember Stephen Rapundalo, who attended Monday’s forum, has been working with a golf task force to turn Huron Hills around, and it’s becoming more profitable. Hopefully, he said, it will get to the point where it’s standing alone, the way it’s supposed to be. Otherwise, he said, parks continue to do well. He noted that the city and the state are in the midst of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

His advocacy for parks has been well recognized, Hieftje said, noting that he won the Local Elected Official of the Year award from the Michigan Parks & Recreation Association. The city’s park system and open space around the city has expanded more since he’s been mayor than perhaps it has under any previous mayor, he said. They’ve done a great deal to grow the park system and take care of it. Much of the parkland that’s been added has been natural areas, like Bluffs Nature Area – areas that need less maintenance, he said. Ann Arbor is a city that loves its parks, he concluded, and it will stay that way for a very long time.

Lesko Rebuttal on Selling Parkland

Right now, the city is entertaining a notion to issue a request for proposals (RFP) to privatize Huron Hills, Lesko said. Councilmember Rapundalo sits on that committee, she noted, adding that she attended one meeting at which the RFP was discussed. Lesko said she couldn’t support issuing an RPF to privatize Huron Hills or any golf course or other recreational facility. Again, in Ann Arbor, residents support the parks with their tax dollars, she said. The current rhetoric is that the parks are subsidized, she said. “Again, that’s fallacious.”

Staffing Levels

Question: Will the city be able to retain staff levels, including essential workers like police and firefighters, and stay within budget for the coming year? What is your solution for adequate staffing within the present budget constraints. [Kinley noted that the city is in active negotiations with police and firefighter unions, which are operating under a temporary reduction agreement.]

Hieftje on Staffing Levels

Hieftje said he doesn’t think there’s a city budget in Michigan that has as many police officers and firefighters as it used to. Cities across the state have needed to make changes. Ann Arbor has the correct number of police, he said, and the correct number of firefighters. Hieftje reported that Ann Arbor’s police chief [Barnett Jones] told him the force could remain a pro-active one, given the current staffing levels. No police officers were laid off, Hieftje said, though a few positions were cut.

Crime is down 15% since 2002-03, which is quite remarkable, Hieftje said, given that we’re in the middle of a very tough economy. The city has moved in a good direction, he said.

Regarding firefighters, the council asked the fire chief to address three criteria, Hieftje said: 1) keep all the fire stations open, 2) ensure that an adequate number of firefighters will be available to perform rescue, which is to get four firefighters on the scene without affecting the current response time, and 3) ensure that 18 firefighters can get to the scene quickly enough to maintain the city’s insurance rating. Hieftje also noted that they’ve been enhancing mutual aid agreements with other communities, like Ypsilanti and Ypslianti Township, that factor into these scenarios.

It’s important to realize that there are 70% fewer fires now than there were in 1970, he said, due to things like improved building codes and sprinkler systems. In fact, the city’s fire department hooks up to a fire hydrant on average only 10-12 times per year, he said. Large fires do occur, but they’re quite rare. The fire department is like an insurance policy, Hieftje said – you need to have it in case you need it. The city also has an excellent ambulance service, he said.

Lesko on Staffing Levels

Lesko said she did a shift at the fire station. What she learned is that the fire department can provide 18 men within 8 minutes to exactly 24% of the city. “That is a circle around the main fire station,” she said. “You are out of that circle,” she told the audience. She and her children also live out of that circle, she said, and it’s not acceptable.

Patricia Lesko, Democratic candidate for mayor, at the July 26, 2010 mayoral forum at University Commons.

Yes, it is insurance, Lesko said, and at the moment the city is carrying major medical, knowing that at any moment they could get a very serious disease. How does the city fund core services like police and fire? she asked. They need to realize that services are being cut to fund other kinds of projects, she said, such as the Fuller Road “parking garage.” She contended that $900,000 for that project is coming out of the general fund – that could pay for several firefighter positions.

Lesko also referenced Hieftje’s statement that crime is down 15%. What does that mean? she asked. There are various categories of crime, like arson and larceny. To say that crime is down 15% is like cotton candy and rainbows, she said – you have to look at the various kinds of crime to understand what it really means. The president of the police officers union told her that crime is down because there are fewer police officers to report crime to, she said.

Officials never compare Ann Arbor to other cities its own size, Lesko said. If they did, they’d find that crime in those cities is down more. She said she’s not sure if it’s because they have more police, but they need to have an honest discussion about it.

Hieftje Rebuttal on Staffing Levels

“I tend to listen to the police chief and the fire chief more than I do the union chief,” Hieftje said. That’s a better way to go, as the city forms its policies for the long term, he said, noting that in the fire department, the fire chief is the only member of the department who’s not in the union.

He said that they have compared Ann Arbor to other cities – Lansing, for example, is almost the same size, and Ann Arbor’s crime rate is considerably lower than Lansing, he said. Crime in Ann Arbor has been low for a long time, and it continues to go down, he said.

Hieftje noted that at one time, the city used to cover the University of Michigan campus. Now, UM has a police force of 50-55 officers. Hieftje said that when he became mayor, the city had the same number of officers as they did when they were responsible for UM. Changes have been made that bring the number of officers more in line with current responsibilities, he said.

Fuller Road Station

Question for Lesko: The city and UM are developing a transit station on Fuller Road on the site of a parking lot that the university leases from the city. The lot is on land that’s designated as parkland. The university will continue to pay the city for use of the parking structure on the site, and is sharing costs of construction. The structure is geared toward ultimately being the site of a train station. You’ve been critical of this project, based on the leasing of parkland. The Sierra Club, one of your supporters, has also been critical of that agreement. Please expound on what you find unappealing about that project.

Lesko on Fuller Road Station

Lesko began by noting that the city’s park advisory commission (PAC) has also been critical of the project – some PAC members have asked very pointed questions about it, she said. Lesko said she’s not critical of transportation. She lived in Rome for three years, and she often takes the bus and rides her bike – her family has just one car. She’s a proponent of non-motorized and alternative transportation.

Rather, she said she’s critical of putting a parking structure on parkland, because in 2008 Ann Arbor voters approved a charter amendment that gave voters control of the disposition of city parkland. The long-term lease of the Fuller Road site is a defacto sale, she said, and it’s been called that by members of PAC. It “circumnavigates our right to vote,” she said. The Sierra Club came out against it before she did, and she agrees with them and with PAC.

The university has space on its own property nearby, she said – on the helipad, for example. If the university needs more parking, they have 600 acres on north campus, she said. They built the Arthur Miller Theatre on what used to be a parking lot. Now, they want to build a parking deck next to the river, on parkland. If the citizens of Ann Arbor would vote in favor of that, she said, then it would be clear: “I’m always in favor of referenda.”

Hieftje on Fuller Road Station

Fuller Road presents the city with an amazing opportunity, Hieftje said. He noted that PAC members aren’t against the proposal, but they’d like to ensure that they see more revenue coming from the user fee that UM would pay. That hasn’t been decided and he said the city is willing to take up that discussion. [Selected Chronicle coverage: "Hieftje Urges Unity on Fuller Road Station," and "Park Commission Asks for Transparency."]

It’s perhaps the most unique location in the state for a transit center, he said. They’ve been working very hard with state and federal officials on bringing east/west rail to Ann Arbor. The federal government has already dedicated $40 million to a high-speed rail project to fix the tracks in the Chicago area. Rail is coming this way, he said – Ann Arbor has been working with SEMCOG and the Michigan Dept. of Transportation (MDOT) to bring commuter rail to the city. The Fuller Road site is near the UM medical complex, where 18,000 people go to work every day, plus another 6,000 visitors. It’s probably the most concentrated employment center in the state,he said, and no other site in Washtenaw County fits the bill for a rail and transit center.

The university does need parking, Hieftje acknowledged. They just added a new women’s and children’s hospital, and they plan to hire 500 new workers every year. It’s the city’s largest employment center, he noted, and the fastest growing. It will be essential for the future of the community to have rail. We’re facing a carbon-challenged future, he said, one in which gas prices will go up. The site has been a parking lot since 1993, Hieftje said, but it’s not being sold or leased. It’s going to be used by several other entities, he said. Amtrak hopes to be there, he said, Greyhound would like to be there, and the AATA is working as a partner with the city. It will put the city on the track to anywhere, Hieftje concluded, including the airport.

Lesko Rebuttal on Fuller Road Station

Lesko said the mayor must have missed the PAC meeting where Eli Cooper, the city’s transportation program manager, told commissioners that Greyhound has backed away from participation. There are no trains, she said. SEMCOG has said that the cost per rider and the projected number of riders doesn’t work out for Ann Arbor to be able to qualify for funding that it needs, she said.

The city is building a parking garage for the university, and some of the money for it has already been paid from the general fund, Lesko said. In the meantime, the city has lost firefighters and services have been reduced. If the university needs a parking garage – and she’s sure they do – as mayor, Lesko said she’d partner with UM and see if they can reduce the number of commuters to the university and Ann Arbor. That’s the crux of the problem, she said. It’s important to reduce the number of people commuting into the city, which has 1,700 empty houses.

Downtown Density

Question for Hieftje: You’ve been very supportive of “densification,” after the successful adoption of the greenbelt millage. The idea was that the greenbelt would form a donut of preserved land around the city, while the city would have more development and go vertical. However, you and council have been less than supportive of some specific projects downtown, such as the hotel proposed at the corner of Washington and Division [Metro 202], and more recently, of The Moravian and Heritage Row projects, which have caused a great deal of turmoil. Explain your feeling about downtown density and how the city can move forward in reaching that goal.

Hieftje on Downtown Density (plus  Fuller Road Station Detour)

Hieftje said he has been supportive of downtown density, noting that the city recently completed a complete rezoning of the city. For the first time, there’s a height limitation of 16 stories, he said. The whole process took about six years and had incredible public input, he said.

The Washington and Division project is going back a few years, he said. [“I have a long memory,” Kinley quipped.] Council approved it, he said, but he wasn’t in favor of it because it didn’t fit the site. The Moravian actually isn’t in the downtown, he said. It was a large, boxy apartment building in an area that will eventually be redeveloped. But if they’re going to accept a building in that area, it should be more attractive, he said.

Hieftje then circled back to the question about Fuller Road Station, saying that the federal government just awarded $30 million to Dearborn for a new train station, because they’re convinced that rail will be a reality in the future. Battle Creek received about $10 million for its station. Cars for the new commuter rail are being refurbished, he said. The exact same track improvements in the Detroit and Chicago areas will clear the way for commuter rail. That means the Ann Arbor area might be looking at a future similar to a European city, he said, where you have high-speed rail that takes you far distances, plus commuter rail. That’s what will open up possibilities for transit-oriented development, he said, especially for areas of town like Broadway Village.

Lesko on Downtown Density

Sometimes, Lesko said, there’s a myopic obsession with downtown. She asked how many in the audience go downtown regularly, then said that she bikes and takes the bus downtown regularly. However, she said she’s knocked on about 5,000 doors and she’s met thousands of people who don’t go downtown.

Lesko said says she lives near the blight on Broadway, and she’s been knocking on doors near the blight of Georgetown Mall, too. The south side of Ann Arbor is looking more and more like Flint, she said, while people obsess about downtown. We need to take care of downtown, but the city is more than that. The city does need economic development and investment in the downtown – that’s crucial to the growth and sustainability of the community, Lesko said. But in terms of allowing denser development in the buffer neighborhoods – where The Moravian would have been located – we must be careful to protect the downtown, the buffer areas and the city as a whole. She said her administration would focus on the big picture.

Hieftje Rebuttal on Downtown Density

There certainly is an effort to look at the whole city outside of the downtown, Hieftje said. He pointed to the Washtenaw corridor study as an example of that – the city is working with the county and other municipalities on that. There are other areas that he’d like to see redeveloped, and they’ll see that when the economy comes back.

Hieftje said it’s important to remember that the city is just coming out of the worst time financially in several years. Lenders are very reluctant to lend for new construction, although there might be a couple of projects coming along soon. Zaragon Place 2 is one development that’s already been approved by planning commission.

He again mentioned the city’s effort to put in place design guidelines. A task force is working on that, he said, aiming to set some parameters on design. There shouldn’t be any more ugly buildings in the city, he said, adding that he understands it’s sometimes in the eye of the beholder. Still, they were coming up with guidelines to make sure buildings are attractive and withstand the test of time. It should be coming to city council later this year or early next year, he said.

Argo Dam

Question: Argo Pond is formed by a dam, and within the past few years, the state has said that parts of the dam should be repaired or that the dam should be removed. That’s caused a lot of controversy. Crew teams actively use it for practice, and others use it for recreation – these groups advocate repairing the dam. But the Huron River Watershed Council, one of the mayor’s supporters, has strongly recommended that the dam be removed. Now, the city has asked for an estimate for repairing the dam, and HRWC has asked that an estimate be made for removing the dam. What’s your position on the Argo Dam issue? [Background Chronicle coverage: "Two Dam Options for Argo."]

Hieftje on Argo Dam

For quite a while, the city’s position has been that there isn’t really anything wrong with the dam, Hieftje said. The state has been pursuing a different tact, he said, and had some problems with the raceway [headrace] and earthen embankment. From an environmental standpoint, there’s a limited amount to be gained by the removal of the dam, he said, adding that he’d be very happy to take a comprehensive look at all the dams on the river.

The dams at Gallup and Argo don’t produce electricity now. But the city’s energy commission, on which he also serves, has recommended keeping Argo Dam – they see a time when the way that we use energy and what we pay for it will change, he said. In the future, it might be profitable again to install turbines at Argo and generate electricity there.

But the rowing community and others who use the pond are also important constituencies, Hieftje said. If you look at high school sports, rowing is the most popular one, he said, and local teams have won regional and even national competitions. He said he’s in favor of keeping the dam, and of working up a comprehensive plan for the Huron River because it’s a great asset, it’s water is getting cleaner and it’s looking better all the time.

Lesko on Argo Dam

The question contains some fallacies and myths that have been circulated, Lesko said. One is that Argo Dam was ever in danger of failing. She said that Laura Rubin, the head of the Huron River Watershed Council, wrote an op/ed in the Ann Arbor News – the first sentence stated “Argo Dam is failing.” That wasn’t true, Lesko said. Then we were told the embankment was failing, she said, but that wasn’t true either.

Lesko said she was told by a park advisory commission (PAC) member that city staff pushed very hard to convince PAC that Argo Dam needed to be removed. “This is city government at its worst,” she said. We were told the pond wasn’t adequately oxygenated – that wasn’t true. There were members on PAC who became so frustrated with the faulty research being presented that they did their own research, Lesko said, and “decimated these notions.”

The state has been trying for years to get the city to do one thing, she said: maintain the toe drains. She likened it to the Larcom building [city hall] and its leaky roof that wasn’t fixed, or the Stadium bridges, which the city has known to be in dire straits for years, she said. The toe drains reflect a pattern of the city government not tending to its capital assets. Without the right people at the helm, she said, the city won’t take care of its assets.

Lesko said she kayaks almost every day between Bandemer and Argo. She said she’s not in favor of removing the dam, and part of the reason is that it would expose parkland [as the pond is reduced in width]. Based on the precedent of the Fuller Road parking garage, that newly-created parkland could be leased, she said. So she didn’t want to do that until the city closes the loophole on the charter amendment regarding the sale of parkland.

Hieftje Rebuttal on Argo Dam

Referring to Lesko’s responses, Hieftje said the question apparently has ranged far and wide, to include capital improvements, so he’d go that route too. A study recently came out that shows Ann Arbor has some of the lowest water and sewer rates in the state. At the same time, the city’s water wins awards almost every year as the best water in the state. The city is increasing its water rates about 3-4% per year, he said, while other cities are making often double-digit increases. At the same time, Ann Arbor has been saving money for a $140 million improvement on the sewage treatment plant, and some of the lines leading to it. This system was built in the 1930s with money from the Roosevelt administration during the Depression, Hieftje noted, when they were putting people to work on project, much like the federal government is doing today.

Water pipes were quite neglected in the 1980s and 1990s, Hieftje said, but the city has been replacing pipes at a pretty regular rate over the past few years – that’s another capital asset, he noted. They’ve also replaced two of the city’s aging maintenance facilities [on North Main and 415 W. Washington] with a brand new maintenance facility. “So there is a lot of work going on in taking care of the city’s infrastructure,” he said.

The county ended the city’s lease at the county courthouse, he added – because the county wanted to move their juvenile court into that location. So the city had to build a new police station and courthouse, he said, which should be finished on time by the end of the year.

Why Ann Arbor Is Lovable

Question: Recently, once again, the city has received a “best of” award. Ann Arbor has received many awards through the years. What makes this city so doggone lovable?

Lesko on Why Ann Arbor Is Lovable

Lesko described how she’s lived here for 26 years, first coming to attend UM as an undergrad. She lived in Rome, Italy but came home again. Her family has lived in Michigan about 170 years. The quality of life here is indescribable, she said. Her family lives near Bandemer Park – they can load up their kayaks and be in the water in five minutes. She said she rides her bike downtown, though the bike lanes are in a “sorry state.” She takes the bus, just like she did when she lived in a European capital and took the bus everywhere. Having a top-notch bus service is a great goal. She said she had a wonderful discussion with the CEO of the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority [Michael Ford] about her vision for Ann Arbor’s bus system.

But above all, she said, the quality of life is tied to where she lives. It’s a neighborhood they chose because it’s racially and socio-economically diverse, she said. Unfortunately, there aren’t many sections like that. The city needs to maintain its racially diverse and socio-economically diverse housing stock. As a native Michigander, she said she can’t think of living anyplace else. “The bumper sticker says it all: I’d rather be in Ann Arbor.”

[Editor's note: Hieftje was not asked to respond to this question.]

City Income Tax

Question: Like most cities in the state and nation, Ann Arbor is fiscally challenged. We have declining revenues and increasing expenses. One option for stabilizing the city’s long-term revenues is to change to a city income tax, balanced by a reduction in property taxes for residents. Is a city income tax the proper solution for helping to maintain the fiscal stability of the city?

Hieftje on a City Income Tax

Hieftje said he’s been thinking about this for a long time, and every once in a while a very robust conversation will pop up about this issue. The income tax would be different than the other cities in Michigan that have it, he said, in that it’s in Ann Arbor’s city charter that if a city income tax is passed, there would be a 6 mill decrease in property taxes.

John Hieftje, incumbent and Democratic candidate for mayor, talks with a resident of University Commons before the July 26, 2010 mayoral forum.

Right now, 28% of a resident’s property taxes go to the city, he said. Property owners would get a break, and for many people, that might offset the income tax. But the income tax doesn’t have an even impact, he said. Renters, for example, likely wouldn’t see any benefit, because landlords wouldn’t necessarily pass on the property tax savings to them. It also shifts taxation from businesses to a greater burden on individuals – that’s something to consider.

He said he’s also worried about encountering a situation like one faced by Grand Rapids, which has had an income tax for many years. It’s a thriving city, he noted, often held up as the best on the west side of the state – it’s just about twice as big as Ann Arbor. Yet in January they cut 140 jobs, including some police and firefighters. They passed an increase in the income tax, to bring in another $8 million, yet they’re still struggling. The problem is that revenues from the income tax are falling at the same time as their property taxes are falling. When you implement an income tax, you introduce a new variable, he said.

Lesko on a City Income Tax

Pointing to a magazine she had in front of her, Lesko said that it reports the population of Grand Rapids is 778,000, which she noted was not slightly more than twice the size of Ann Arbor, as Hieftje had stated. [Based on the 2000 census, the city of Grand Rapids has a population of 197,800 – the Grand Rapids metropolitan area, to which Lesko was likely referring, has a population of 778,009.]

Lesko then read an excerpt from an article in the magazine, which described Grand Rapids as a thriving city. Ann Arbor should be thriving equal to Grand Rapids, she said, because we pay property taxes that are some of the highest in the state.

She said she agreed with many things that Hieftje cited as reasons why a city income tax isn’t a great idea, including the fact that it pushes the tax burden from businesses onto individuals. She said that as an individual, she would never vote for a city income tax. But as the city’s next mayor, she said, if there’s consensus on council to put it on the ballot, “I will bring it to you, and you will decide.”

Lesko noted that councilmember Stephen Rapundalo [who represents Ward 2 and who attended Monday's forum] has supported an income tax, and that there are reasons for it. But the question again contains some myths, she said. The city is not fiscally challenged. Pfizer left the city with 4.68% less revenue – that’s the glass half empty view, she said. The glass-half-full view is that they have 95% of their property tax revenue left. The city has increased fees for water and sewer – those increases are among the smallest because the city started with higher fees, she said. It’s important to tell the whole story, she said.

Hieftje Rebuttal on a City Income Tax

The water rates are still some of the lowest in the state, Hieftje countered. And regarding population size, there’s a difference between the metro area and the city itself.

Returning to the income tax question, it’s a discussion that comes up occasionally, and he’s concerned about the “double hit” of getting into a recession and seeing both falling income tax and property tax revenues. The other thing that’s happening is that the state revenue-sharing cuts have been deep, he said. The city is getting close to $4 million less than they used to in 2002. He said they were hopeful that state revenue-sharing would stay flat over the next two years, and not decrease.

If an income tax were to be accepted by the voters, there would need to be a considerable education program, he said, because most people don’t understand that they’d get a 6 mill property tax break. He said he’s certainly not recommending that the city needs more revenue at this time. The city has been doing an admirable job of keeping all the balls in the air while moving forward on a number of initiatives, he concluded.

City Income Tax (Redux)

[Later in the meeting, the candidates were asked a follow-up question by Don Kaul, a University Commons resident and columnist.] Question: In your responses to the city income tax question, neither of you mentioned the people who live outside the city but who earn their living here. Is it possible to single out those people for a tax?

Lesko on a City Income Tax (Redux)

In going door to door, Lesko said she ran into two professors who teach at Wayne State, and they made the same kind of argument. It’s a valid argument. As an individual, she said disagrees with that vehemently. The city has adequate revenue right now to fund superior services, excellent recreational facilities, and superior infrastructure, she said. At their last mayoral debate, state Rep. Alma Wheeler Smith talked about this, and Lesko said she agree with her – that’s how you build a city. Do we need another tax? As an individual, Lesko said she’d say no. But as an elected official, if there’s a will within the citizenry and council to examine it more closely, she would support that and bring it to the ballot for a vote. But from her perspective, the city doesn’t have a revenue problem, she said. The city has a spending problem.

Hieftje on a City Income Tax (Redux)

In Michigan, local governments can impose a property tax and an income tax, Hieftje said. The income tax would need to be 1% for residents and .5% for non-residents. “You don’t get to choose – it’s a package deal,” he said. What’s more, Ann Arbor is the only city that would require a 6-mill cut in property taxes, if an income tax is levied. Even without that, the city does well, Hieftje said. He noted that he wouldn’t trade places with any mayor – and that he makes that statement often. Ann Arbor’s services are better than most places in Michigan, he said, and Ann Arbor’s millage is slightly lower than it was in 2000. There was a failed millage in Troy recently, and now that city is eliminating a third of its workforce, he said. Royal Oak is struggling too. So far, throughout this long economic malaise, Ann Arbor continues to hold up well, he concluded, and they are not proposing a tax increase.

Lesko Rebuttal on a City Income Tax (Redux)

Lesko noted that this is something Hieftje says all the time – that Ann Arbor is doing better than Troy, Royal Oak and Grand Rapids. We should be, she said, because we pay more. They’re paying less and getting fewer services. We’re paying more, and getting fewer services, she said, and that’s a fundamental difference.

Payment In Lieu of Taxes (PILOT)

Question for Lesko: On your blog, you’ve suggested that the city use your ideas for increasing revenues and decreasing expenses. One of those suggestions is to ask the largest nonprofits to make voluntary payments in lieu of taxes – what’s known as a PILOT. Which nonprofits should be approached?

Lesko on PILOT

Boston and Providence, Rhode Island – cities which host multiple universities, she noted – have voluntary PILOT programs. Right now, UM pays the city about $8.8 million for water, sewer and other services, which works out to be about $2,200 per acre of land it owns, she said: “That’s a low charge for the university.”

Cities that go about implementing PILOT programs generally hire consultants who have done it elsewhere, Lesko said. She described the process like this: The mayor goes to the university and asks for a voluntary payment. When that overture is rejected, then the mayor goes to the state legislators and suggests putting a tax on tuition. Then, the consultant comes in and crafts a program. Lesko said that Providence gets “millions and millions and millions of dollars” in PILOT payments, as does Boston.

Lesko said that Hieftje often states that 40% of the city’s land is off the tax rolls – that’s a little misleading, she said. The figure includes parkland, which was never intended to be on the tax rolls. The city wouldn’t approach religious groups or small nonprofits for PILOT, she said, but could approach large nonprofits – a consultant would come in and design a program to identify those. But it won’t be done unless there’s the political will to do it, she added. “You can’t win the lottery without buying a ticket. We will have a PILOT program if there are people in place who support a PILOT program.” There hasn’t been a PILOT program because there aren’t people who are willing to go forward and design one, she said.

Hieftje on PILOT

“I have yet to hear of a city that has a state university that makes such a payment,” Hieftje said. Certainly, UM wouldn’t be happy about that. It’s a question that’s been studied by city attorneys probably for 130 years, he said, trying to figure out a way for the university to make a PILOT payment. City attorneys have said there’s no way to force the university to do that.

State legislators are also against it, he said. Hieftje asked the audience to picture themselves as a legislator from Traverse City. UM is, in reality, a university for the state of Michigan, and the state is giving hundreds of millions of dollars to UM. Under a PILOT program, UM would in turn give some of that money to Ann Arbor. If you’re from Traverse City, you might say, “If they’re going to give money to Ann Arbor, why not give it to Traverse City too?” Hieftje noted that there are state universities throughout Michigan, and this could set a precedent for giving money back to their local communities. It wouldn’t be long before the rest of the legislature asked “What’s going on here?”

Cities where universities are located have a certain benefit, he said, such as a stable employment base. Does the city want to pursue something that every legal authority he’s talked to, and every state legislator he’s talked to, continue to say isn’t going to happen? It makes for a really good talking point, he concluded, and there are private universities that are doing it – but not in Michigan.

Lesko Rebuttal on PILOT

Lesko pointed out that Hieftje was quoted in the newspaper saying he’s been trying to get a PILOT program going and trying to negotiate payments with the University of Michigan for a long time. “So which is it?” she asked. This isn’t supposed to be a “gotcha,” she said. It’s looking at what they’re planning to do at a particular time.

She described her plan as a can-do plan, with a can-do attitude. If the city attorney says they can’t do a PILOT program, do they stop there? “Is that what you do with your children? Is that what you taught them?” No, she said – you tell them not to give up. This is the lifeblood of the city, she said. Do you want a mayor who will stop the second somebody says you can’t do it? “I’m not that kind of manager in my own company, I’m not that kind of a CEO, I’m not that kind of a parent and I surely won’t be that kind of elected leader. A can-do attitude is what we need, and I have it.”

Downtown Development

Question: Recently there have been projects that have been denied by city council after a process. A developer submits a plan to the city for review. The city planning staff reviews it and recommends it to the planning commission, which is appointed by council. It reviews the project and passes along a recommendation to city council. These are for real estate developments. In the city code, there is a requirement that if a certain percentage of residents within a certain radius of a project ask for it, they can demand that the project get approval by a super-majority of city council – or 8 out of 11 votes, instead of the standard 6-vote majority. This process happened recently on two projects [The Moravian and Heritage Row], which were both recommended by staff and planning commission, but which were rejected by council because they didn’t reach the 8-vote majority. Is this a fair process? If not, how would you modify the super-majority rule to be more representative of a fair process to encourage development and not discourage good development?

Hieftje on Downtown Development

Hieftje clarified that The Moravian failed on a 6-5 vote, and Heritage Row vote was 7-3, with one councilmember absent. [Heritage Row initially failed on a 7-4 vote at council's June 21, 2010 meeting. It was brought back for reconsideration at a subsequent council meeting, where it failed by a 7-3 vote, with Mike Anglin absent. The Moravian was voted on at council's April 5, 2010 meeting.]

It’s important to distinguish between “by-right” developments and “planned unit developments” (PUDs), Hieftje said. By-right means that the developer, as a matter of law, meets the zoning requirements and has the right to build. A recent example of that is Zaragon Place 2, a 14-story building proposed for the corner of William and Thompson. He said he expects city council will vote for it because as a by-right project, they really don’t have much choice. City council doesn’t have a legal way to say no to a building – that’s why they need design guidelines, he said.

In contrast, a PUD requires special zoning for the site. Developers should all understand that when they bring a PUD, there’s no guarantee that it will be approved, he said. It ultimately comes down to a subjective opinion, and everyone on council can form their own opinion about whether the project meets the criteria needed to pass as a PUD, he said: Does it meet environmental standards? Does it have affordable housing? Is it a good fit for the neighborhood?

Lesko on Downtown Development

Lesko pointed out that the question was very specific: Is requiring an 8-vote super-majority fair to the developer? In terms of the current rules, it is totally fair, she said. If you want to change the rules, then there needs to be a discussion on that.

The city does need development, Lesko said. There needs to be an open and honest discussion about projects that come to council. The Moravian is a classic example, she said, “of a French farce without the wigs.” Ninety people lined up to speak at the council meeting on the night of the vote, then several councilmembers read their prepared remarks, she said. “What does that tell you? That they’d decided how to vote before they came in the room, right?” It was unbelievable to see the enthusiasm of people during public commentary, she said, and to see their commitment to participate in city government.

Lesko said the crux of the question is: How do we make neighborhoods and the developers that have projects in those neighborhoods have less antagonistic relationships? Because ultimately, the city does want development, she said. But letting planned unit developments into neighborhoods is an economic subsidy, she argued, because buying land in a neighborhood is less expensive than it is downtown. Zaragon Place 2 is a great development for that area, and they paid a premium for the location. The Moravian acquired several smaller parcels, then asked for a favor from city council, she said. When you ask for a favor, she added, sometimes you’re told no – that’s the problem. There needs to be a more honest discussion at council between citizens and councilmembers, she said, or council needs to say to developers that the city won’t give them exceptions. But antagonism is bad, and it’s something that needs to change, she concluded.

Hieftje Rebuttal on Downtown Development

The 8-vote super-majority is a very strong tool the neighbors can use to protect themselves, he said. Everyone can imagine living in a neighborhood and then having a large project come along that they might not want or that’s completely out of character with the neighborhood. If enough property owners agree that they want to protest it, that triggers the 8-vote requirement, he said. That’s the way it’s been set up for a very long time, Hieftje added, and he thinks it’s served the city well overall. The developer who brings a PUD before council should understand that it needs to meet the standards that councilmembers will hold it to.

Funding for Ann Arbor SPARK

Question for Lesko: An alphabet soup – DDA, LDFA, TIF, MEDC, SPARK. You know the question.

Lesko on Funding for Ann Arbor SPARK

Lesko said that she understood the question. The DDA is the Downtown Development Authority, she said, which was established to fight off blight in the downtown area. Some folks have questioned whether it’s outlived its mission. One of those folks was the city administrator, she said, who she contended in April put forth the idea of dissolving the DDA and taking the revenue in house.

The LDFA is the financing authority that provides money from local school districts to SPARK, as a contractor. [Ann Arbor SPARK is a nonprofit economic development agency.] At their last debate, she said, Hieftje stated that the state reimburses schools for that money. Then people “higher up the food chain,” she said – Alma Wheeler Smith, Jeff Irwin and Rebekah Warren – stood up and said the state’s not reimbursing schools for the money that the LDFA takes.

Lesko said that the Detroit Free Press did an exposé recently and said that in exchange for about $127 million in tax money, SPARK had created a “whopping” 900 jobs since 2006. “That’s not good enough,” she said. Going door to door, Lesko said she met a man who had an idea for a start-up and that he’d talked about it with Hieftje, who had told him to go to SPARK. SPARK said they’d help him write a business plan for $2,000. That’s a bad deal, Lesko said.

The city needs to encourage existing businesses. These are the people who have jobs now, she said. Fifty percent of start-ups fail after five years. She asked the audience whether they would invest their money knowing that they had a 50% chance of losing it all – she said she wouldn’t. The city needs to make Ann Arbor a magnet for existing businesses.

Hieftje on Funding for Ann Arbor SPARK

Hieftje said he’s a big believer in organizations like SPARK. When he’s in Lansing, other mayors are constantly saying they wished they had an organization like SPARK, he said. It’s renowned across the state for bringing jobs to the community, and they have a strong record of success.

Looking Ahead

[For the last question, Kinley flipped a coin to see who would choose the order of answering. As sitting mayor, Hieftje was allowed to make the call. He won the toss, and chose to answer the question first.] Question: How would you suggest that the city and its council and citizenry move forward in the two years following the November election?

Hieftje on Looking Ahead

The city needs to continue to do what they’ve been doing – it’s worked very well, he said. The city has made some dramatic reductions in its workforce, but has also added a lot of technology to bring efficiencies. One example is water meter reading. In the past, someone physically went to each meter, Hieftje explained. Now, the meters send out signals that can be read via computer.

He noted that the city used to have 21 department heads, and now has just five “bubbleheads” – a term derived from the city’s organizational chart. There’s been a large middle-management reduction. Conservatively, the city is saving about $15 million annually from these changes, he said. They’ll have to continue to “sharpen our pencils,” he said – everyone is working harder and being more frugal. That’s why the millage is slightly lower than it was in 2000.

Taxes are certainly not low in Ann Arbor, Hieftje said, but the city has managed to get this far without a millage increase. Just 28% of local taxes go to the city, he said. They could make some considerable cuts in the city’s 28% and taxpayers still might not notice that they were paying that much less. The city will continue to enforce the efficiencies they’ve put in place, he said, and continue to make that better.

Lesko on Looking Ahead

It sounds great, Lesko said, but it’s not the whole story. She noted that Hieftje stated that the city saved $15 million. But there are 200 fewer employees, and the city is paying about the same for personnel. Where are the savings? she asked. Folks who retire go into the city’s retirement system – there’s a $190 million unfunded pension liability, she said: “That scares me.” Pension payments are not optional.

The city needs to go forward by realizing real economy, she said, by tackling real non-essential spending, and by realizing that over the last decade, they’ve had leadership that’s been concerned with re-election. Lesko said that she’d have to take a leave of absence from her job to be mayor. She noted that she has small children, but this is important to her. She was raised by someone who believed that democracy should be participatory. Citizens need elected officials who aren’t going to tell people what they want to hear. They need people in office who are willing to talk about the hard issues, she said, like the $190 million unfunded pension liability.

The city is hiring consultants and full-time temporary laborers, Lesko said, and paying them peanuts. Single moms are being hired as full-time temps time after time, and being denied membership in the union, and being paid peanuts. That’s how the city is realizing these economies, she said. She added that she is not willing to head a city that takes advantage of people, and creates and perpetuates poverty. They have to talk about the hard issues, she said, and they can do it, as long as they have open, honest and transparent discussion.

Hieftje Rebuttal on Looking Ahead

Hieftje said he doesn’t know any single moms who are being paid peanuts – he hasn’t heard about that. And the city has a plan to deal with the pension liability, he said. Fortunately, it’s not due next week, he noted – not for a long time. He likened it to having a mortgage, with time to pay it. The city has a plan that its CFO has confidence in, he said. He acknowledged that financial markets have been down, and that certainly affects pensions.

He thanked the audience and organizers of the forum, and noted that he didn’t answer the earlier question about why Ann Arbor is a great city. A lot of that has to do with the people who live here, he said, who are willing to give their time and talent to move things forward. Many people in the room have served in that capacity, he noted, and he appreciates that. He pointed out that Kinley had served on the city’s residential task force.

Ann Arbor is in a very good position, Hieftje said, as the economy improves and they move out of this recession. The city is ready to spring forward, perhaps more than any other in the state, he said. A program on PBS last year reported on some great things about Ann Arbor, Hieftje noted. He said the title of the program was “Ann Arbor: Michigan’s Life Preserver,” adding that the rest of the state looks at Ann Arbor to be that for the economy. He thanked everyone for their contributions to that as well.

Residents of University Commons gathered for a mayoral forum held at their condo complex on July 26, 2010.

Patricia Lesko and John Hieftje at the League of Women Voters forum filmed at CTN studios on July 12. (Photos by the writer.)

This year Democratic voters will select between challenger Patricia Lesko and incumbent John Hieftje, who was first elected as mayor in 2000. In the November general election, the winner of the Democratic primary will face independent Steve Bean.

Based on campaign finance statements filed Friday, July 23, Lesko has so far collected 49 donations totaling $3,968  – not including a personal loan to her campaign of $1,525. Hieftje has collected 140 donations totaling $16,276. The mean donation to Lesko is $81, compared to Hieftje’s $116. A greater difference is revealed by the median donation: $50 for Lesko  and $100 for Hieftje. Complete financial statements for Lesko and Hieftje are available on the county clerk’s section of ewashtenaw.org. Comparing those statements demonstrates it’s possible for one person to donate to both candidates.

Previous Chronicle coverage of the mayoral race includes: “Ann Arbor Dems Primary: Mayoral Race.”

The city Dems forum was moderated by Jim Leonard, who wrote the piece “Satan For Mayor?!” published in the July edition of the Ann Arbor Observer.

The body of this report consists of a summary of questions asked and candidates’ responses. The forum at which the question was asked is indicated with AAD (Ann Arbor Dems) or LWV (League of Women Voters).

Just before the closing statements, we’ve presented separately some material in which the candidates departed from the topic at hand, to circle back to earlier issues.

Opening Statements

Each candidate gave an opening statement.

AAD: Hieftje’s Opening Statement

At Barack Obama’s commencement speech at Michigan Stadium, the president called the current economic climate the worst recession since the Great Depression, Hieftje said. Michigan’s been hit harder than other states. Many cities have been forced to cut staff, close facilities and lay off their staff, he said. Three cities he cited specifically were Royal Oak, Grand Rapids and Troy.

All cities face cuts in state revenue sharing, lower property tax revenues, lower investment income and rising health care costs. Grand Rapids had to lay off 140 people, he said, but was able hire back some of them when they passed a tax increase in May. Grand Rapids had only been able to open two of their six pools this season, with a third opened due to contributions from a philanthropist. Grand Rapids’ reserve fund was down to 4%, Heiftje said, when the target is 8-12%.

In Ann Arbor, Hieftje continued, 40% of real estate is not on the tax rolls. Only 28% of property taxes go to the city government, Hieftje said, with the rest going to the county, education, the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority, and other taxing authorities. The millage charged today is actually lower than in 2000, Hieftje said. “Why aren’t we reeling?” he asked rhetorically. Hieftje’s answer is that the city had started addressing budget issues early. As a result, the city had opened all of its facilities this season. The general fund reserve is around 10% and the city hasn’t cut human services funding.

Hieftje characterized Ann Arbor’s financial condition as the best of any city in the state. He said he wouldn’t trade places with any other mayor in the state.

AAD: Lesko’s Opening Statement

Alluding to the forum for the state Senate race, held just prior to the mayoral forum, Lesko said it was tough to follow Rebekah Warren and Pam Byrnes. She thanked the city of Ann Arbor Democratic Party as well as the audience. As the next mayor, she said, she will refocus on the basics: services and infrastructure. As CEO of a national higher educational publishing group in Ann Arbor, she said, even during the recession they had expanded into the Canadian marketplace, and they have brought their business to local companies. The city had gone over budget on construction costs, on wayfinding signs, on the underground parking garage, “luxury office” space [an allusion to the new police-courts facility], and non-essential spending on information technology, fleet, and solid waste services.

As the next mayor, she said, she would make sure services take center stage. She called for moving the city to zero-based budgeting, funding the basics, and saying no to staff requests for non-essential spending.

She noted that at a previous candidate forum, Hieftje said it would be “foolish” to start the repair of the Stadium bridges this fall. Lesko then pointed out the Hieftje had said the bridge’s safety rating had improved, when the beams were removed.

While the bridge’s rating had improved from 21 to 23.5, out of 100, she noted, a rating under 50 on the 100-point FSR [Federal Sufficiency Rating] scale means that the bridge should be considered for repair or replacement. Lesko also noted that the federal and state money the city hoped to be awarded was not guaranteed. She called for using the local road and street-repair millage to fund an immediate start of the bridge reconstruction.

Lesko said she wanted to refocus on the basics: responsible spending, services, infrastructure and neighborhoods. She characterized council efforts like banning mercury thermometers, banning bikes from sidewalks, banning toy guns, or banning plastic bags as a waste of time.

LWV: Patricia Lesko’s Opening Statement

Lesko began by noting that she is a member of the League of Women Voters and thanked the local chapter for hosting the debate. She has lived in Ann Arbor for 26 years and earned both her undergraduate and graduate degrees at the University of Michigan. She said that she would refocus the city government on the basics, using her real world experience in management and finance.

Her key focus would be responsible spending, infrastructure, and neighborhoods, she said. Lesko contended that we do not have a revenue problem in the city of Ann Arbor but rather a city government that has been allowed to overspend and to run up debt for years. Taxpayers are being asked to pay more, she said, and are getting nickeled-and-dimed to death with fee increases. She stated that she has the political will to say no to non-essential spending. She assured voters that she would find creative and sensible solutions to the challenges that face the city. She concluded by saying that she was asking for people’s vote on Aug. 3.

LWV: John Hieftje’s Opening Statement

The mayor began by describing how cities in Michigan are suffering from falling property tax revenues and deep cuts in state funding. He pointed to other cities like Grand Rapids, Troy, and Royal Oak, which have been forced to close facilities, raise taxes or make deep cuts in staffing.

In Grand Rapids, for example, they were only able to open three of their six swimming pools this year. In Ann Arbor, he said, the millage is lower now than it was 10 years ago, but the senior center and Mack pool remain open. He pointed out that Ann Arbor had lost almost 5% of its property tax revenues due to the sale of the Pfizer property to the University of Michigan. But Ann Arbor is still moving forward, he said. And that is possible, he contended, because the city government is continuing on a road to greater efficiency, which it started 10 years ago. He said that he was determined to stay on a path towards greater efficiency so that Ann Arbor can continue to be one of the leading cities anywhere.

Stadium Bridges

AAD Question: What is your plan to fix the Stadium bridges? How much will it cost? Whose cooperation will the city need? How will you get that cooperation? Be as detailed as you can.

By way of background, the millage for street reconstruction and repair is 2 mills, yielding roughly $9 million per year in revenues. It was last renewed in 2006 through 2011.

Charter: SECTION 8.20. In addition to any other amount which the City is authorized to raise by general tax upon the real and personal property by this Charter or any other provision of law, the City shall, in 2007 through 2011, annually levy a tax of up to 2 mills on all taxable real and personal property situated within the City for the purpose of providing funds for the reconstruction or resurfacing of streets. (Section 8.20 added by election of April 2, 1984; amended by elections of April 4, 1988, April 1, 1991, November 5, 1996, November 6, 2001 and November 7, 2006.)

For background on the Stadium bridges, including a timeline of events related to the bridges, see Chronicle coverage: “Budget Round 6: Bridges, Safety Services.”

The southern two lanes on the bridge were removed in the fall of 2009 on the advice of the city’s bridge engineering consultant, pending the planned reconstruction of the bridge.

AAD: Lesko on the Stadium Bridges

Lesko congratulated herself for having just answered the question in her opening remarks. She noted that the city had a local millage for road and street repair. She allowed that the city might be “loathe to use that” because that money is also needed to repair roads throughout Ann Arbor. She suggested that the danger of spending road repair millage money on the bridge could be mitigated if voters renew the road millage.

If residents of Ann Arbor see their road millage money being used to repair roads, she said she didn’t not think there would be a problem getting the millage renewed.

She called for the participation of the University of Michigan on the project, but noted that it would be a challenge, because the university “jealously guards” its own revenue – as she said any organization should. Lesko pointed to the city’s website as containing information on the cost for repairing the bridges.

AAD: Hieftje on the Stadium Bridges

Hieftje began by stating that the city was certainly going to go ahead and fix the Stadium bridges next spring, whether federal funding is forthcoming or not. There was some money to fix the bridges already coming in “in little dribbles,” he said, and he allowed that the city did have a street repair millage that would help the city repair roads in the future.

He then switched to a statewide perspective, pointing out that there are 50 bridges in Michigan that are being considered for closing. Three of them, he said, are in Washtenaw County. It wasn’t long ago, he said, back when the Broadway bridges were being replaced, when such projects were funded mostly through state and federal funds, but that has changed. He said that when he mentioned to other mayors in the state that Ann Arbor is planning to replace the Stadium bridges on its own, they were surprised that any city would have enough money to do that.

He reiterated his contention that it would have been foolish to go ahead and repair the bridges this fall, when there was still the opportunity to win federal money. The condition of the bridge, he noted, had deteriorated very quickly and people were caught a little by surprise, but the city’s engineers were “right on it” and kept a very close watch on the bridge. And he pointed out that it was, in fact, true that the safety rating of the bridge improved when the beams were removed on the southern lanes. He said the city planned to replace the bridge in the spring.

The situation with respect to road repair funding was bad enough across the state, Hieftje said, that some counties were taking paved roads and turning them back into gravel roads. [This is true in Washtenaw County as well.] The cost of the project, he said, is just under $23 million. It’s a project that needs to be done, and should have gotten done by this point, he allowed. He concluded that it was critical to try to get the federal money so that the city could spend local money on local roads. He concluded by saying that the project would be started in the spring.

LWV Question: In these tight budget times, funding for infrastructure is becoming problematic. The Stadium bridge is a good example. Is the city going to be able to find funds to fix it, and what solutions would you propose to meet the infrastructure needs of the community?

LWV: Hieftje on Bridges and Infrastructure

The mayor said that when he came into office, the city was quite a bit behind in addressing its infrastructure needs. The city had been neglecting its water and sewer system for many years before that, he said. The city was still replacing 75-year-old water mains, he said, but he felt that the city had basically caught up with that. Other improvements the city had made, he said, included the new Wheeler Maintenance Center, which replaced the “crumbling facilities” at 415 W. Washington and at 721 N. Main.

The city is building a much-needed police-courts building, he said, noting that the city had to move out of the space that it had been leasing from the county, because the county has other plans for the space. Hieftje said the police had needed a new headquarters for over 40 years. The city will fix the Stadium bridges in the coming year, he stated. He allowed that they probably could have started that project this fall, but went on to say that he thought it would have been foolish to go ahead with it when there is still an opportunity for the city to get federal money instead of spending just local money.

He said he hoped the funding strategy would turn out to be very similar to the one that had been used with the Broadway bridges. Most of the funding have come from outside the city for that project, and the city had provided matching funds – around 20%.

LWV: Lesko on Bridges and Infrastructure

Lesko said she heard from a resident that if the Stadium bridge looks like that, they wondered what condition the unseen infrastructure was in. The city is replacing water mains as they break, she contended, without replacing any great number of them proactively. She characterized the city government’s approach as reactive.

She noted that the mayor has stated three times – in the course of various forums – that it would be foolish to replace the Stadium bridge immediately. She asked if it was foolish to fix a bridge that the city’s fire trucks can’t go over, but rather must go around in order to protect homes and families. It’s easier to talk about Royal Oak, Troy, and Grand Rapids, she said, than to explain to voters why a bridge that carries 20,000 vehicles daily wasn’t fixed in 2005. She described the city’s record on infrastructure as “abysmal.” She described Ann Arbor roads as the third worst in Michigan. We need to reopen the city’s capital improvement plan (CIP), she said, and dedicate funding to fix the worst roads, because the longer we wait, the more time it will take.

Mayoral Challenges

LWV Question: What questions do you see facing the mayor in the next two years?

LWV: John Hieftje on Mayoral Challenges in Next Two Years

Hieftje identified the overriding challenge facing any mayor as being the state budget. He noted that the city now receives about $4 million less in state revenue-sharing than it did back in 2002-03. A “host of other funding” that used to come from the state has also disappeared, he said. He reiterated a frequent theme in his campaign, which is that Ann Arbor is doing better than other cities in Michigan – our millage is still lower than it was 10 years ago. That would continue to be the focus, he said.

The other thing that he said he’d continued to try to work on is improving the quality of life in Ann Arbor. He referred to the quality of life in Ann Arbor as Ann Arbor’s “economic calling card.” The more the city thrives, he said, the more people want to be here, and when talented people want to be here, it makes it easier to attract companies that want to employ talented people. The people who want to work for these companies want to make their lives here, they want to have their families go to our schools, and want to enjoy our festivals, and be happy in our neighborhoods, he concluded.

LWV: Lesko on Mayoral Challenges in Next Two Years

Lesko said she and the mayor agreed on a lot – there are fiscal challenges with respect to service provision. An issue facing the mayor in particular, she said, is economic development. If we want people to move to Ann Arbor, she said, we have to provide them with superior services and excellent infrastructure, and superior schools. Those are some challenges that face us as a community, she said.

Lesko talked about the mayor’s reference to lost revenue – 5% of property taxes. She noted that this meant there was still 95% left. She contended that the city therefore is not facing any great revenue shortage. With respect to state revenue-sharing, she noted that the loss had been about a half million dollars a year since 2006. Revenue is not the problem in Ann Arbor, she said, it is fiscal management. Prudent management is the No. 1 challenge. She said that as mayor, she would have the political will to manage prudently.

Budget

LWV Question: Looking at the city budget, what further cuts, if any, should be made, and should the city look for additional sources of revenue? If so, what might they be?

Coverage of the meeting at which the city council adopted its FY 2011 budget: “City’s Budget Takes Backseat to DDA Issues.”

LWV: Hieftje on the Budget

Hieftje said that the city has made it this far without an increase in the millage, but it would be tough over the next few years. The best thing we can do, he said, it is to continue to try to be efficient in every phase of the city’s operation. The reorganization of the city, he said, is saving over $15 million a year so far.

LWV: Lesko on the Budget

Responding to the question about whether more cuts needed to be made, Lesko answered in the affirmative: There’s a lot of cutting left to do in the budget, she said. There is a lot of non-essential spending, she contended. She described the new underground parking garage at the city-owned Library Lot as one example of non-essential spending. She identified allocations to the fleet, solid waste, and IT departments as other examples of non-essential spending. We need to go through the budget, she said, with a “fine-toothed comb.”

She described keeping the current millage rate the same as a “red herring,” because the city has raised water, sewage, and solid waste fees.

It’s not accurate, she said, to say that the city has not raised the millage without also saying that we have raised fees. Overspending in city government, she said, has been supported through raising fees. One way to increase revenues, she said, is to increase the tax base through economic development. This would make Ann Arbor a magnet for small and medium-sized businesses that already exist.

Economic Development

Introduction to background on the city’s economic development approach: “Budget Round 5: Economic Development.”

LWV Question: How would you rate the business climate in Ann Arbor? Is there something the city can do to make it better, and if so, what?

LWV: Hieftje on the Business Climate

Hieftje said there is a lot to do to make it better. One of the things that he has been doing, he said, is to improve the quality of life in the city. The other thing the city has done, he said, is to work with partners like the county and the University of Michigan, to start SPARK, the region’s economic development agency. He reported that when he is in Lansing and he is talking to other mayors, one of the things that he hears is that they wish they also had a SPARK. He described SPARK as bringing in new business to the city and bringing thousands of jobs to Ann Arbor.

SPARK is an organization that reaches out across the country, he said – SPARK is doing some work out in Palo Alto this month. He said he had heard from his brother-in-law that SPARK is quite impressive when they go out to California and try to lure people back to Ann Arbor. We need to make it easier to do business here in Ann Arbor, he said. And one of the important things that the city has done is not raise the millage – he felt that this is a central factor in helping to bring more business to the city.

LWV: Lesko on the Business Climate

Lesko reported that she’d spent a lot of time talking to individual business owners up and down Main Street and throughout Ann Arbor. The word on the street, she said, is that the city government is unhelpful if not downright arrogant, cumbersome to deal with, and non-responsive. The city government, she reported, makes it difficult to do business, and Ann Arbor cannot afford to have that kind of a reputation, she said. The city has experienced a net loss in jobs, she said. She referenced a Detroit Free Press “exposé” on SPARK and contended that in the entire state of Michigan only about 900 real jobs have been created.

We need to look at other types of economic development engines, she said, bifurcating that process. SPARK focuses on start-up companies, but Lesko said that the city needs to also support existing small and medium-sized businesses that we already have. The city hasn’t raised the millage, she allowed, adding that the mayor says this all the time – and he’s right. Instead of raising the millage, she continued, we have raised fees.

LWV Question: Have tax abatements played a positive role in the past and should they be continued?

LWV: Lesko on Tax Abatements

Lesko described tax abatements as junk food. The city gave Google some tax incentives, she said, when they said they would create 1,000 jobs – those incentives had come in the form of parking spaces. That money came from the city’s general fund, she said, to create the economic development fund. But Google did not create 1,000 jobs, she said, or anywhere near that, but the city gave them their parking spaces.

On tax abatements, Lesko said she agreed with Alma Wheeler Smith [who was briefly in the running for the Democratic nomination for the Michigan governor's race]. Smith is not in favor of tax abatements for the simple reason that it’s better to have a sound infrastructure, provide excellent services, and attract businesses organically than “give away the cow and the milk” and end up with a lot less than you expected, Lesko said.

LWV: Hieftje on Tax Abatements

Hieftje indicated that Ann Arbor had been very judicious and “stingy” about awarding tax abatements. But he said that sometimes an incentive is necessary. He allowed that Google had not grown to create 1,000 jobs, but not very many companies have been growing jobs in this economy. He contended that the presence of Google in Ann Arbor has made a big difference and allowed the city to attract some other small start-up companies, which are growing.

As a specific example, he cited Barracuda Networks, which is hiring a person every week right now. There are companies that want to be in Ann Arbor because of the quality of life offered in the city. The city itself is an attractant to companies that will bring jobs, he said, adding that he felt SPARK had done a fine job in creating thousands of jobs. He concluded by saying that Ann Arbor continues to have the lowest unemployment rate of any city in Michigan.

City Income Tax

AAD Question: City income tax: yes, no, maybe, why?

By way of background, on Aug. 13, 2009, the city council held a work session on a city income tax. Chronicle coverage of that session: “City Income Tax: Maybe Later.”  See also “Another Old Income Tax Study.”

AAD: Hieftje on City Income Tax

Hieftje began his comments on the topic by saying he’d never been a fan of a city income tax. One reason, he said, was that it didn’t distribute the burden fairly. It also meant a shift of taxes from the business community to individuals. Per the city charter, implementation of a city income tax would mean a 6 mill reduction in taxes when the general operating millage was eliminated.

Renters – about half the population of Ann Arbor, he said – would probably not see any benefit passed along from landlords in the form of a rent reduction. A city income tax would also create another problem, Hieftje said, because property tax revenue is relatively stable when compared to income tax revenue. Grand Rapids had seen a 14% decline in its city income tax revenues, Hieftje reported. He allowed that many city residents and some members of the city council had suggested that a city income tax might be something to put on the ballot. If the voters decided that they wanted to try an income tax, that might be something he’d consider putting on the ballot, but right now, he indicated that he didn’t think it was the right time to do that.

AAD: Lesko on City Income Tax

Lesko began by saying, “What he said!” She continued, saying that their positions on the city income tax were virtually identical, with one exception. In knocking on 3,000 doors, she’d heard from maybe two people who are in favor of a city income tax, so she was not certain who Hieftje had been talking to, who were in favor of it. She repeated an anecdote from a previous forum about a woman whose door Lesko knocked on. The woman had quickly scanned Lesko’s campaign literature and was relieved that Lesko was not in favor of a city income tax.

Lesko stressed that she was always in favor of giving Ann Arbor voters the opportunity to vote on such issues. She said she supported residents’ right to vote on a city income tax, as well as on general obligation bonds.

However, she stated that she didn’t think that Ann Arbor needed more revenue. Responding to Hieftje’s cited statistic of losing 4.86% of property tax revenue due to the sale of Pfizer property to the University of Michigan, she concluded that this left the city with 95% of its revenue. She allowed that state revenue-sharing had fallen by about $0.5 million per year since 2006. But she did not think that those losses were sufficient to account for putting the city’s general fund and the rest of the budget into “a tailspin.” Overspending and imprudent management had done that, she said.

Development and Overbuilding

AAD Question: Ann Arbor is being overbuilt. What do you propose to stop this trend? Or, Ann Arbor is not being overbuilt. What do you propose to do to continue this trend?

AAD: Hieftje on Development

Hieftje began by alluding to a list that Ward 5 councilmember Carsten Hohnke had begun reciting at various public meetings, of approved development projects in the downtown area. Hieftje then reviewed some of the recent planning activity for the downtown. The city has recently completed a rezoning of downtown, which for the first time includes a height limit for downtown, he said. He noted that the city was seeing projects proposed, even in the middle of a recession, pointing specifically to Zaragon Place 2 [a residential and retail building being constructed at the corner of Thompson and William]. The area around Zaragon Place 2 would be rejuvenated, he said, and would put a lot of people to work. The construction work being done around town is putting people to work, he said.

He then alluded to a recent column by Lou Glazer of Michigan Future Inc., who contended that Ann Arbor is not leading the way, because Ann Arbor is not friendly to developers, and because Ann Arbor continues to turn down new housing developments for young professionals. Hieftje contended that developments that are oversized and that don’t fit well with the neighborhood have been turned down.

On the one hand, he said, it seemed like there was a building boom going on – University of Michigan’s North Quad, the city’s police-courts building, the DDA’s new underground parking structure. On the other hand, the city would not let people build just any new housing they wanted. He said he expected the downtown to see increased development, but told the audience they should keep in mind that much of the downtown consists of historic districts. Between the land owned by the university and the historic districts, he estimated than 50% of the real estate is left for development.

AAD: Lesko on Development

Lesko said the phrasing of the question suggested it’s a black-and-white issue, which it is not. Entities that don’t change will die, she cautioned. The city needs development. While Hieftje talked about jobs that construction projects brought, she said, they were not jobs for people who live in our city. She also challenged Hieftje’s contention that the construction of the police-courts facility was not having a large impact on the general fund budget. The debt service for those bonds does have an impact, she said.

Lesko noted that Hieftje had focused on the downtown, but she was also concerned about the rest of the city. She said that the south side of the city “languishes.” She talked about the “blight” of Lowertown and Georgetown Mall. The downtown is only part of the issue, she said. The downtown is the heart of the city, she allowed, but if the heart still beats and our brain fails, we die.

We need development, she said, but we only needed PUD-type development [planned unit developments, requiring rezoning] only if zoning was changed so that the city stops aggravating both developers and neighborhoods. Lesko noted that many of the projects that had been approved had not actually been built. We have to bring together neighbors and developers and form a consensus, she suggested.

Library Lot

AAD Question: What should go on top of the underground parking garage at the Library Lot?

AAD: Hieftje on the Library Lot

Hieftje said he felt there would be a fulsome discussion about what should go on top as they moved forward. He noted that there were some folks who’d like to see it as a grand central park. Ann Arbor already has over 2,000 acres of parks, he said. He said he was working very hard to create an art center and greenway at the old 415 W. Washington property and a lot of progress has been made – they’ve received the first grant, he said.

There are also folks who do not want to see a park over the entire area of the Library Lot, he said. He’d heard that sentiment at the downtown marketing task force, and leaders of the Ann Arbor District Library had also made their position clear that they did not want to see that kind of scenario unfold.

He said there were conspiracy theories about a convention center to be built on the space. There were proposals that included a convention center, he said, but also included a mix of residential and retail. It’s possible that the community would decide that the entire parcel should be a park and he is open to that discussion, he said.

He said he also valued the input of the neighborhood, saying that the downtown itself is also a neighborhood.

Hieftje also stated that it was important to look at the revenue question, and how a public park would be policed. There would be plenty of time for that conversation, he said.

AAD: Lesko on the Library Lot

As to the question of what should be built on the parcel, she said, there needed to be an open and honest RFP (request for proposals) process. There needs to be an open and transparent discussion, and that had not yet happened, she said.

Historic Districts

LWV Question: Development is always a hot topic in this community. Recently, people have been concerned about the Heritage Row project and the possibility of creating a historic district in what is sometimes called the Germantown area of town. What is your view on historic districts? Do we need any more of them – why or why not?

Background on the issue:

“S. Fifth Avenue: Historic District, Development”

“Heritage Row Rejected; Historic District Decision Looms”

“Unscripted: Historic District; Immigration”

LWV: Lesko on Historic Districts

Lesko said she couldn’t answer the question of whether we need any more historic districts, because we base the establishment of a district on specific criteria analyzed by committees that are appointed to study the question. It would be premature to say we never need another historic district. The city needs to decide on a case-by-case basis, she said. And we need to do it methodically, and we need to do it in a way so that it includes the people in the neighborhoods. She then said that a city that doesn’t grow will atrophy. Ann Arbor experienced a net loss of jobs, according to CNN Money.com, which had recently given Ann Arbor an award – she then congratulated the city staff for that. Development is inevitable, she said. We need it because we need the investment. It’s how we go about it that’s important – the city needs to have more transparency, with open and honest discussions, she concluded.

LWV: Hieftje on Historic Districts

Hieftje described historic districts as wonderful for Ann Arbor and noted that the city has many of them. He noted that Main Street is in a historic district and there are 14 districts total – quite a bit of the downtown is made up of historic districts. However, he said that we need to take a close look. He noted that the historic district that was recently before the city council was defeated, but he had voted for it. He thought it was appropriate to preserve the houses in that area. But he noted that he also voted for the Heritage Row PUD. He described Heritage Row as a much better idea than going forward with the matter-of-right City Place project, which was proposed by the same developer and is already approved at that site.

Human Services

AAD Question: Do you plan to expand, contract, or maintain as-is our services for the homeless?

By way of background, human services funding was slated to be cut by $260,000 in the city administrator’s proposed budget, presented in April 2010. It was restored by the city council in May when the council amended and adopted the budget. Chronicle coverage: “City’s Budget Takes Backseat to DDA Issues.” Allocations of the more than $1 million budgeted for human services was approved at the city council’s July 19, 2010 meeting.

AAD: Lesko on Human Services

Lesko acknowledged that while the need for human services had increased exponentially, the funding had not kept pace. She stressed that the homeless are not only alcohol- and drug-addicted people. The city needs to continue to coordinate its efforts with the county. She noted that Pam Byrnes and Rebekah Warren had been very clear that the state would not be able to help out.

Lesko suggested that a good start would be to stop removing human services funding then restoring it in a grandstanding fashion.

Human services are not optional, she said. Homelessness has to be looked at head on. And that has to start with prioritizing in the budget, she said. We need the commitment and the will to deal with homelessness, she said.

AAD: Hieftje on Human Services

Hieftje contended that human services funding had increased in the city of Ann Arbor since 2000. He pointed to the emergency allocation of funds that had been made this past winter that had allowed the Washtenaw Shelter Association to double the number of spots in warming centers and to provide vouchers for families to obtain permanent housing. [Chronicle coverage: "Council OKs Recycling, Transit, Shelter"]

He pointed out there are only two cities left in the state that still provide human services funding and Ann Arbor is one of them. He challenged anyone to find a city that helps those in need more than Ann Arbor.

Police-Courts Building

AAD Question: The police-courts building. Good idea? Bad idea? Why?

Background on the police-courts building, including a historical account of Hieftje’s threatened veto, is included in The Chronicle’s April 19, 2010 city council meeting report.

By way of additional background, an ultimately unsuccessful petition drive was mounted, which would have required a referendum on the bond issuance for the building. From a May 28, 2008 Ann Arbor News article by Judy McGovern:

A petition drive aimed at forcing a citywide vote on the financing for a new Ann Arbor police-court building ended Tuesday, about 3,800 signatures short of the number needed put the issue on the ballot.

The failure of the “Ask Voters First” campaign means city officials can proceed with plans to issue a bond for as much as $31 million toward the estimated $47 million project.

Though disappointed, Ask Voters First spokesman Ed Amonsen said he wasn’t surprised.

“We needed a lot of signatures and didn’t have much time,” said Amonsen, who organized the campaign with City Council Member Mike Anglin and activists including Karen Sidney and Glenn Thompson.

For Chronicle coverage of Lesko’s unsuccessful attempt to put a charter amendment on the ballot that would require voter referenda on all general obligation bonds, see: “Bid Launched to Amend City Charter.”

AAD: Hieftje on Police-Courts Building

Hieftje said he’d agonized over the building for a long time. When he’d first arrived on city council in 1999, there were drawings for a whole new city hall – it would have replaced the one they had with a new building. The major impetus for that, he said, was the need to find a place for the police department and the 15th District Court. Things had come to a head when the city had received a letter from the county administrator [Bob Guenzel], Hieftje continued, saying that the lease the city had with the county for the 15th District Court would not be renewed. The county had given the city plenty of time, Hieftje said, to plan to move out of the county’s building.

A task force had looked at 10 other buildings, Hieftje said, to see if they could be remodeled to accommodate a court facility, but that had not been possible. Back when the current city hall was built, the intention was originally for the police to move out into their own headquarters, but that facility had never been built, he said. It made a great deal of sense to combine the police and courts facility, Hieftje said, if it could be done with a minimal impact on the city’s general fund budget.

Hieftje said he’d taken extra time to ensure that the city could come in under budget or within the budget, still in time to vacate the county courthouse. He said he’d taken extra time to decide that it was “absolutely the only and best course that we could take.” He’d decided it was, and pointed out that the final vote to sell the bonds to go forward with the project was 9-2. That was a consensus among elective representatives to move forward with the project, Hieftje said.

AAD: Lesko on Police-Courts Building

On the subject of the police-courts facility, Lesko said that 6,000 voices had come to the city council and asked for a vote on whether to issue the bonds. She acknowledged that the building was under construction and would be built. She contended, however, that it was over budget. She stated that the building needed to be value-engineered to reduce costs. She pointed to the sale of city land at First and Washington at a price of $3 million that was included in the financing plan for the police-courts facility. That land has not yet sold, she noted. [Chronicle coverage of the short-term extension to Village Green on its option-to-purchase agreement: "Development Deja Vu Dominates Council"]

She allowed that the mayor and council had voted to build the facility with more than a super-majority, but noted that there’d been 6,000 voices who had wanted a vote. That might have yielded a different outcome, she said.

Lesko returned to a point brought out at a previous forum about the underground parking garage, which Hieftje has said is being paid for with parking revenues. In fact, Lesko contended, that was misleading, because the project was being funded by bonds. [Note: As The Chronicle has previously observed in reporting on this issue, the project is funded by bonds, and parking revenues will be tapped to make the bond payments.]

Returning to the police-courts facility, she said it would go forward. She contended that Hieftje had voted for a budget that appropriated more money for the police-courts facility instead of requiring the city administrator to bring the project in on budget.

Transparency in Government

AAD Question: City government – is it transparent? If not, why not, and what would you do differently?

AAD: Lesko on Transparency

Lesko that the fact that the two candidates were sitting there talking was transparent. The city’s website, she said, was good but could be better. She said she found it difficult to navigate, even though it has won awards.

She said the emails that had been produced last year in response to Freedom of Information Act requests made clear that the city’s elected officials were conducting private conversations during a public meeting. The future use of the top of the Library Lot parcel had also showed that meetings were going on behind the scenes between elected officials and representatives of companies who wanted to build something on the parcel. That could not be described as transparent, she said.

Lesko said it was possible to have transparency. She noted that some DDA officials had a problem with the DDA conducting closed meetings. Public meetings should be public, she stated. The council had altered it rules so that councilmembers are no longer supposed to email each other except under specific circumstances, which was good, she said. Backroom dealing, she said, was not transparent and that was also not leadership. Leaders make sure that the folks they work with are doing what’s right and doing what’s in the best interest of taxpayers. There’s too much at stake for any lack of transparency, she said.

AAD: Hieftje on Transparency

Hieftje began by criticizing Lesko for her use of various pseudonyms and her blog, which she initially wrote anonymously. “It’s very interesting to hear someone who started a blog by advertising it on WEMU radio, who went under the name Sam Rosenthal for six months and then to rip everyone on city council [...] to talk about transparency.” [Editor's note: It was an "open secret" from the time it first launched that Lesko was the author of a2politico.com.]

Hieftje then contended that when Lesko’s identity as Sam Rosenthal was found out, she then announced she was running for mayor. Hieftje stated that he believed Ann Arbor’s city government is the most transparent that people can find anywhere. He emphasized that he himself had not sent emails to councilmembers during council meetings, though some councilmembers had. He called his response to that “very appropriate” and said that the press had reported his comments.

“Conspiracy and lack of transparency charges coming from Sam Rosenthal are one thing. Coming from someone who’s running for mayor, that’s another,” Hieftje concluded.

Mayoral Responsibilities

AAD Question: Given that the city of Ann Arbor has a city administrator form of government, what are the three most important responsibilities of the mayor and how would you rate the current mayor’s performance?

AAD: Lesko on Mayoral Responsibilities

Amid a bit of laughter from the audience, Lesko began by considering out loud the prospect of rating Hieftje’s performance. When moderator Jim Leonard, a writer with The Ann Arbor Observer, told her she might simply start with the three most important responsibilities, Lesko cheerily shot back, “I’ll answer the question how I like!” which prompted more laughs from the audience. She said that rating Hieftje’s performance would be up to voters on Aug. 3. She had no intention of rating his performance, she said.

She allowed that the city had a city administrator, but that the charter gave the council one important mandate, which was to hold the city administrator accountable. She said while it might be fun to see city staff members hauled up to the podium and “grilled” like “fish on the barbecue” by city councilmembers, those staff members are actually accountable to the city administrator, and it’s the administrator’s responsibility to grill his own staff.

Another very important job of the mayor is to lead the community, she said. It’s also important for the mayor to take responsibility, not just credit, for everything. Alluding to the piece that Leonard had written for The Observer on the mayoral race, she said she’d told him she is willing to take credit for nothing, but to take responsibility for everything. The reason for that, she said, is that she would not be seeking re-election – she has a job already, she said. She’d need to take a leave of absence from that job to serve as mayor, she said.

AAD: Hieftje on Mayoral Responsibilities

Hietfje began by acknowledging that Ann Arbor has a city administrator form of government. He said that technology like electronic mail has increased the role of the city council and mayor as a liaison between residents and the city government. The visibility of the mayor and the city council, he said, has increased over time. The mayor, he continued, is also the head of emergency management for the city.

The mayor is the leader of the city council, Hieftje said, and that body is responsible for the hiring and firing of two key positions: the city administrator and the city attorney. He stated that he and the city council did hold the administrator accountable on whether his goals were achieved. He gave credit to the city administrator’s performance for Ann Arbor’s continued leadership of the state, both financially and in terms of quality of life. In terms of performance, he said, he would put Ann Arbor up against any city in Michigan.

Hieftje then ticked through a number of awards that the city has won. He continued to lead the council, he said, in making sure that the budget was balanced and that the city had adequate reserve funds, and making sure that the city’s infrastructure was in good shape. The forum was held at the Ann Arbor Community Center on North Main, and Hieftje pointed to the crumbling city maintenance facilities behind the center. The city had moved out of that facility and it could eventually become a greenway park, he said, as could the city facility at 415 W. Washington. Those two facilities had been replaced by a the new Wheeler Center maintenance facility, he noted. He also pointed to the new police-courts facility that the city was building as a result of the need to move the courts out of space it currently leases from the county. The police have needed a space outside of the city hall for several years, he said. The impact to the city’s general fund from those projects had been minimal, he said.

LWV Question: What role does a mayor play in a city manager type of government such as we have in Ann Arbor and what strengths would you bring to that role?

LWV: Lesko on the Strengths She Would Bring to Mayoral Role

Lesko said that the mayor plays a primary role as the leader of the city council. The mayor is also in charge of emergency management, she pointed out. And the mayor and the city council are responsible, as stipulated in the city charter, to hold the city administrator accountable. The city administrator is hired with six votes on the council, she said, and fired with six votes. The responsibilities of the mayor, she said, are laid out very clearly in the city charter.

Speaking to the specific strengths that she would bring to the position, Lesko said she could “not be bought, co-opted, or bullied.” That’s important, she said, when you have a strong and capable city administrator, which is the kind of city government that Ann Arbor has: a strong administrator but a weak mayor. She said it was very important that her skills of management and finance be brought to bear on the job as mayor.

LWV: John Hieftje on the Strengths He Would Bring to Mayoral Role

Hieftje pointed to leadership of the council and to performing as the ceremonial head of the city as two roles. Elaborating on being the ceremonial head of the city, he spoke about meeting with people who come in from out of town, as well as business leaders – and there’s a role to play in Lansing as well, he said. He characterized the hiring of the city administrator and the city attorney as “important duties.” He described the current city administrator, Roger Fraser, as one who has followed through on the directives of the city council.

He also said that Fraser had hired some very competent people to serve the city, like Sue McCormick – people who lead the city on a day-to-day basis. There was a time, he said, when there were up to 20 different department heads in the city government – that’s been cut down to five areas, he said, the so-called “bubble heads.” Those kinds of changes have streamlined city government, he said.

Why You and Not Him/Her?

AAD Question: Why you and not the other candidate?

AAD: Lesko on Herself

Lesko said she wanted to reiterate what she’d said at the last debate, that she did not want to make the race personal. She said she did not dislike Hieftje. The campaign is about policy and programs and about issues, she contended. She and Hieftje simply disagree on the issues, she said. She said she wanted to see Ann Arbor go a different direction policy-wise. If Ann Arborites feel they are getting the best value for their tax dollars, then they should vote for Hieftje. If they did not, however, then what they were saying to themselves was that it’s time for a change. It is time for a change, she declared.

She said she wanted to thank Hieftje for the job he’d done, as everyone should – it’s a hard job, she stressed. Why me and not him? That’s not the “cogent question,” she said. The real question is: “Are you ready for a change?”

She said she’d heard people say, “He’s a great guy, but I just can’t vote for him any more.” She said she’d voted for him three times, but it’s time for a change. Not voting for someone doesn’t mean you don’t like them personally, she said. Running against someone doesn’t mean you don’t like them personally, it means you’re ready for a change and for new ideas.

She pointed people to her blog a2politico.com, where she’s outlined those ideas in detail, a blog she contended had “thousands and thousands and thousands” of readers. She said she’d laid out her plan, whereas Hieftje has not. Hieftje has no blog, she observed – just a Facebook page that isn’t updated very often. If you want to talk to Hieftje, she said, you have to make an appointment, or go to his office hours. If people want to talk to her, she said, she had three email addresses, two phone numbers, a blog, a Twitter account, a Facebook page, and a web site. She stated she was open to voters. “Are you getting the best value for your tax dollars right now?” she asked. If not, people should vote for change, she said.

AAD: Hieftje on Himself

Hieftje said he was happy to run on his record and on the condition Ann Arbor was in financially. He called it the best-situated city financially of any city in the state. Ann Arbor is in relatively good shape, despite the fact that it had lost its largest employer [Pfizer] and lost 4.86% of property tax revenue, he said, and despite the fact that the city’s annual allocation for state revenue-sharing is now $4 million less than it was back in 2002.

He said he is happy to stand on his record leading a city that has received numerous national awards. He said that the city had expanded its bike lanes by 600% in five years and is working to become one of the best places to walk in the nation.

Despite the downturn in the economy, Hieftje said, Ann Arbor remains a leader on many fronts. The 2005 census update showed that Ann Arbor was one of the top cities for the number of people who bike or walk to their destinations. He said he’d been working on bringing rail transportation to the city of Ann Arbor.

He repeated that he was happy to stand on his record.

Topical Departures

As the introduction to this report indicates, we’ve extracted a certain amount of material from the summaries of candidate responses for presentation in this, a separate section.

By way of background, a common format for candidate forums held in Ann Arbor is for questions to be administered by a moderator, with each candidate allowed a set amount of time to respond. When it’s a pair of candidates, they simply take turns answering the question first.

A candidate who answers first has an advantage, because they have a better opportunity to demonstrate their factual command of the issue. But an advantage to answering second is that a candidate has the opportunity to rebut assertions of the candidate who answered first. No opportunity is typically built into the format to allow rebuttal by a candidate who wants to respond to assertions made by the candidate fielding a question last.

By way of contrast, a recent Ward 5 forum for city council candidates Lou Glorie and Carsten Hohnke departed from that custom. It included an optional opportunity for both candidates to follow up. So in the Ward 5 forum, each question had potentially four total responses: Candidate 1; Candidate 2; Candidate 1 again; Candidate 2 again.

And at the Ward 5 event, both Glorie and Hohnke availed themselves of the opportunity to speak twice to the same question on multiple occasions. But their responses seemed to fall more into the category of elaborating and clarifying as opposed to rebutting – the setting itself, in a resident’s home, encouraged a certain casualness.

In the mayoral forums, however, there was no built-in mechanism for rebuttal. Consequently, when Hieftje or Lesko disagreed with aspects of each other’s responses to questions, they had a choice: Let it pass unchallenged, or else use time from a subsequent question to circle back to the earlier issue.

Departure from the topic at hand to circle back to an earlier topic is a fairly substantial barrier to rebuttal. So when a candidate chooses to clear that barrier, it may reasonably be interpreted as indicating strong candidate investment in a specific voter perception about a particular issue.

That’s one reason we’ve presented the topical departures in this, a separate section. Another reason is readability – we’ve extracted these responses from answers to the original, unrelated questions.

Topical Departure: From Historic Districts to Fees

At the LWV event, the question at hand was about historic districts, but Hieftje went back to a previous Lesko response to a question on the budget. She’d said that while the basic millage had not increased, fees for water and sewer had increased.

Hieftje said he wanted to “drop back for a second” and talk about water and sewer rates going up. He allowed that they had gone up, but that they had gone up less than in surrounding cities and other peer cities. And he noted that the city is building a huge new replacement of the sewage treatment plant – which is well over $100 million. Yet the city’s rates have been going up only around 4%, he said. Peer communities are going up sometimes in double digits.

Topical Departure: From Closing Statement to Bridges

At the LWV event, Hieftje began his closing statement by saying that he again wanted to “drop back just a little bit.” He then addressed the topic of the Stadium bridge again.

The Stadium bridge is a good topic, he said. There are three bridges in Washington County under discussion for closing. There are probably about 50 in the state of Michigan. The city will fix the Stadium bridge, he stated. He said that he would say again that he thought it would be a very bad idea to spend just local money on the project when the opportunity remains for the city to bring in federal money. With respect to the underground parking structure, he said, it’s not paid for with property tax dollars – the bond for that would be paid for with parking revenues, the same way parking structures had always been paid for by the Downtown Development Authority.

Topical Departure: From Closing Statement to Bridges

Lesko began her own closing statement by responding to remarks that Hieftje had made about the Stadium bridges during the time for his own closing statement.

Lesko began by saying she’d like to “fall back for just a minute” – she said she thought that Hieftje had perhaps missed the remarks of Pam Byrnes and Rebekah Warren at the city Democratic Party’s candidate forum for state senate District 18, held earlier that morning just prior to the mayoral forum. In response to a question about whether the state had money available for the Stadium bridge, Lesko reported that both candidates had said no. As much as we would like to believe that the money is just round the corner, she cautioned, Pam and Rebekah were very clear that it was not.

Topical Departure: From Human Services to Police-Courts and The Slate

At the city Dems forum, the question put to the candidates was about human services funding. But Hieftje used part of his time to respond to earlier remarks from Lesko about the police-courts facility, and to make a general criticism about the factual accuracy of her campaign.

He returned to the previous question by saying, “Let me drop back, though, to a question ago …” He took up Lesko’s contention that debt service for the police-courts facility bond had an impact on the general fund budget. He rejected that contention, because $700,000 would be saved, which is currently paid in rent. He also pointed to funds that the Downtown Development Authority had provided to help build the police-courts facility. He said it was a part of the DDA’s mandate to help keep municipal buildings in the downtown and that the DDA had been “perfectly willing to step up and fund that.”

He then went on to criticize not just Lesko, but the group of candidates who are challenging incumbents on the council. “There are so many subtle myths that are propagated in all of the literature and statements that we hear from the other slate in this campaign [...] They continue to play games with the truth. I think that’s been clear in the press coverage, and I think that will turn out to be clear today …”

Topical Departure: From Transparency to Police-Courts

At the city Dems forum, during a response to a question about transparency in government, Hieftje circled back to Lesko’s contention that the police-court facility was not within its budget: “Let’s go back a minute, though …” He characterized the issue as security equipment that was never a part of the project budget.

He also addressed the issue of the underground parking garage and its funding. The debt for that is held by the city, he allowed, but he noted that the DDA is making the bond payments. And throughout the history of the DDA, he continued, the revenue from the parking system had paid for the bonds for parking structures. He then emphasized the need for building the new underground structure, citing the loss of 170 street spaces over the last few years, plus the potential loss of the Brown lot [now a surface parking lot south of Huron and north of Washington, between Ashley and First], if it were ever to be developed by First Martin Corp.

Topical Departure: From Library Lot to Anonymous Blogging

At the city Dems forum, before Lesko fielded a question about the city-owned Library Lot, she picked up on Hieftje’s remarks about her anonymously written blog, stating sardonically, “Don’t write a blog! Don’t do it anonymously! Don’t disagree!” It’s easier “to hammer someone personally,” she said, than to talk about the issues. It’s easier to talk about what somebody wrote on a private blog, she said, than to talk about the fact that Hieftje had approved a budget that included overspending on the police-courts facility. “That was your plan?? To overspend??” That is not a plan, she said, that is a knee-jerk reaction.

Lesko noted that back in 2008, Stew Nelson had been convinced that decision-making on city council had not been transparent, and that position had been validated in June 2009 when emails exchanged during city council meetings were made public. Councilmembers had called each other names and handed out “Golden Vomit” awards. It’s easier to hammer those candidates personally who run on the issues, she said.

Topical Departure: From Budget to State Shared Revenues

At the LWV forum, Hieftje answered a question about the city’s budget, then said he wanted to “go back and visit a number that had previously been stated.” He circled back to Lesko’s characterization of state shared revenues – she said the loss had been about a half million dollars a year since 2006. Hieftje said that if you take a look at total state shared revenues back in 2002 and 2003, during the peak, then the city does receive about $4 million less per year than it used to receive. [Based on the one-page summary from the city's FY 2011 budget book on state shared revenues, the city received a total of $12,436,105 in state shared revenue in FY 2003, $11,127,489 in FY 2006 and was estimated to receive $9,149,332 in FY 2010.]

Wrapping Up

Candidates made closing statements. At the city Dems forum, Jim Leonard, who was moderating the affair, invited Lesko to begin. However, Lesko indicated it was her understanding that since Hieftje had gone first with the opening statement, he would also go first with the closing statement.

When told that the coin toss had been for the “bookend,” Lesko indicated that she’d understood the arrangement differently, and thus would prefer to have the final speaking slot. From the side of the room, the chair of the Ann Arbor City Democratic Party, Conan Smith, told Lesko that the arrangement for the “bookend” position – first with the opening statement and last with the closing statement – had been what they’d discussed “since forever.” With that, Lesko began her closing statement.

AAD: Lesko’s Closing Statement

Lesko began her closing statement by citing an endorsement by the Michigan Sierra Club and the Huron Valley Chapter of the Sierra Club.

She also thanked Hieftje again for his 10 years of service. She finished up by quoting from several of her supporters, including Matthew Schroeder, who’s president of the Fire Fighters IAFF Local 693, which has endorsed Lesko, and from Peter Nicolas, who served on the city council in the mid-1990s.

She said she was not yet asking for their votes, but rather to listen as more candidate forums were held. She thanked everyone for coming.

AAD: Hieftje’s Closing Statement

Hieftje also thanked everyone for coming and for taking part in the process. He reiterated that he was happy to run on his record. He said that he had received endorsements, too – among them from the UAW [United Auto Workers] union and the LGBT [Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender] Democratic Caucus.

He stated he’d won several awards for environmental leadership, most recently in 2008 from the Michigan League of Conservation Voters. He was named the winner of the award for environmental leadership for the whole state in 2008, he said.

Hieftje said that the slate of candidates that are running together to challenge incumbents were saying, “There’s something wrong! We must do something about this.” The other side was saying that they are continuing to work hard and seriously in a hard-hit state.

On Aug. 3, he said, he hoped everyone would vote, as there are many important races. He said he appreciated the support of many of the people in the room. He said he would ask for their vote.

It’s the hard work of the residents that make Ann Arbor a place that we all want to live, Hieftje said. He felt that the city has a solid city council and he encouraged people to vote for those city councilmembers who are running for re-election.

LWV: Hieftje’s Closing Statement

Despite everything that’s happened with the downturn in the economy, despite the loss of the Pfizer property tax revenues, Hieftje contended that Ann Arbor remains a leader on many fronts and continues to move forward.

He described the brightness of Ann Arbor as “undimmed” during the long economic recession. It’s one of the leading cities in the country with respect to energy conservation, he said. It’s a city that wins awards for being one of the best places to live, walk, or ride a bike. It’s a healthy city that values art and its diversity, he said. Unlike the state or the county or countless other cities, he said, throughout the long recession Ann Arbor has not cut human services for those who need it the most. In the future, he cautioned that the city would have to make budget adjustments, but must stay on the path to ever-greater efficiency, and the foundation for that has been laid, he said. He contended that the quality of life in the city continues to go up – citing the recent conclusion of the Ann Arbor Summer Festival and commencement of the art fairs. He concluded by saying he would not trade places with the mayor of any other city.

LWV: Lesko’s Closing Statement

Alluding to the undimmed brightness of Ann Arbor described by Hieftje, Lesko warned that it is being dimmed – literally, by a program to save money by de-energizing streetlights in specific areas.

She thanked several people: the city staff for their hard work; Michigan’s 21st Century Job Fund for pumping $120 million into Ann Arbor’s economy; and Ann Arbor’s largest employer, the University Michigan. Ann Arbor has sufficient revenue, she said. The mayor’s race is a referendum on the direction of public policy and city management, she suggested. It’s time to stop talking about Troy and Grand Rapids, she said, while Ann Arbor’s roads and Stadium bridges are about to crumble.

She asked: How do we keep the same thing from happening in the future? Do we save a buck by slashing public safety? Do we want reactive or proactive government? The cost to city government has risen substantially, she said, as has the spending on non-essential items. She said that Hieftje is proposing that taxpayers bail out the city with service cuts and increases in fees – for parking, water, sewer and solid waste. In contrast, she said, she proposed that the city cut overspending. She said we needed to ask why the city charges itself $4,000 per acre per year to mow grass in the public parks. Why does the city award no-bid contracts, and approve leases and consultants, and award union contracts that are clearly not in the best interest of the taxpayers?

She noted that she has the support of the Michigan Sierra Club as well as both the police and firefighter unions, because they know that as the next mayor, she would refocus the government on the basics. She proposed that the city of Ann Arbor should be managed with sensible, progressive values and Midwestern common sense. As the next mayor of Ann Arbor, she said, she would have a city government where city services take center stage and the government lives within the generous means that taxpayers have always provided.

Washtenaw County commissioner candidates for Districts 10 & 11, from left: Conan Smith, LuAnne Bullington, Mike Fried, Yousef Rabhi, Alice Ralph. Smith is the incumbent for District 10. His challenger, Danielle Mack, did not attend. The other candidates are vying for the District 11 seat held by Jeff Irwin, who is running for state representative. (Photos by the writer.)

There are 11 seats on the county board, divided by geographic region – including four districts representing Ann Arbor. Commissioners are elected to two-year terms. This year, Democratic incumbents in two of Ann Arbor’s districts – Leah Gunn of District 9 and Barbara Bergman of District 8 – are unopposed in the primary, though they will face Republican challengers in November.

Incumbent Conan Smith of District 10, which covers the west and northwest portions of Ann Arbor, faces Danielle Mack in the Democratic primary. She did not attend the forum, citing a scheduling conflict. The winner of that primary will be unopposed in November.

In District 11, incumbent Jeff Irwin – who’s been on the board for a decade – isn’t seeking re-election, but is instead running for state representative in District 53. [See Chronicle coverage: "Michigan Dems Primary: House 53rd District"] Four Democrats are competing in the primary to replace Irwin: LuAnne Bullington, Mike Fried, Yousef Rabhi and Alice Ralph. The winner of the Aug. 3 primary will face Republican Joe Baublis in November. District 11 covers parts of central and eastern Ann Arbor. [See the Washtenaw County election website for a complete list of county commissioner candidates.]

Questions posed by the moderator, Nancy Schewe, had been formulated by a LWV-AAA committee, with input solicited from the community. They covered a range of topics, from funding for the county jail and police services contracts to expansion of the road commission and the candidates’ views on mass transit. Candidates were each given one minute to respond. This summary of candidate responses is presented in the order in which they spoke at the hour-long forum.

Opening Statements

Candidates were given one minute each to make some introductory remarks. They drew numbers from a hat to determine the speaking order.

Conan Smith, incumbent candidate for District 10 Washtenaw County board of commissioners.

Conan Smith’s Opening Statement

Smith began by noting that he currently serves on the board, representing west and north Ann Arbor, and has been a commissioner since 2004. He comes out of a tradition of public service in his family, he said. Smith cited his work experience, as executive director for the nonprofit Michigan Suburbs Alliance and before that with the Michigan Environmental Council, which he described as an umbrella group for the state’s environmental organizations.

Smith said his family has been active in public service since he was very young and he always has enjoyed helping people in Ann Arbor and Washtenaw County. He spent the past year working on the county’s budget, he said, stabilizing the community and public services. He concluded by saying he hopes to have people’s vote.

LuAnne Bullington’s Opening Statement

Bullington thanked the league for hosting the forum, saying it was a very important community service.

LuAnne Bullington, candidate for District 11 Washtenaw County board of commissioners.

She said she moved to Ann Arbor in 1993 and moved to her current home in the city’s Ward 3 in 1993.

She has two grown children and is retired from a career in computer information services. She said her work has included jobs as a computer information services manager, a senior programmer, a senior project manager, and a web team leader for the University of Michigan’s computer information services department. Before that, Bullington said she taught for eight years in public schools. She holds a bachelor’s degree in education and in special education from Eastern Michigan University, and a bachelor’s degree in computer science.

Yousef Rabhi’s Opening Statement

Rabhi thanked the league and said he’d been watching these debates since he was a voter – it’s a great service to the community.

Yousef Rabhi, candidate for District 11 Washtenaw County board of commissioners.

“I’m running because I believe in us,” Rabhi said. He believes in the community and in its ability to overcome this tough economic period. Even with a budget that’s declining for the first time in 50 years, the county can still maintain an excellent level of human services, he said, services that the community depends on and cares about, like maintaining parks, health care, and mental health care.

We can accomplish these goals by reining in the government, he said. We need to create an efficient government that works for the people and provides the human services that everyone needs.

It’s important to work across all levels of government – cities, villages, townships, and the county – to reduce the duplication of services, Rabhi said. There needs to be more efficiency in reducing electrical use, water use and fuel use in the county’s buildings and fleet.

Mike Fried’s Opening Statement

We all know times are tough and money’s tight, Fried began. Even so, he said, the county can balance its budget while maintaining essential services, helping those in need, improving collaboration and planning for the future.

Mike Fried, candidate for District 11 Washtenaw County board of commissioners.

It’s not an easy job, Fried added, but he said he has the experience and skills to achieve these objectives. He served 26 years as chief of administration at the Wayne County prosecutor’s office. While there, he said he maintained quality services while controlling spending. This is also a priority for Washtenaw County, he said.

Since retiring, Fried said he has continued this commitment to community service. He’s a trained mediator and facilitator, and serves on the board of the Dispute Resolution Center. He’s also on the board and serves as treasurer of Jewish Family Services of Washtenaw County, and he’s a member of the county’s Criminal Justice Collaborative Council.

Fried said he cares about the county where he’s lived for 50 years, and knows that he can and should help by being a county commissioner.

Alice Ralph’s Opening Statement

This year, we celebrate 90 years of women’s constitutional right to vote, Ralph said.

Alice Ralph, candidate for District 11 Washtenaw County board of commissioners.

Celebrating the same anniversary, the League of Women Voters continues to encourage informed and active citizen participation in government, she noted. A leading suffragist and co-founding national treasurer of the league, Katharine Dexter McCormick, was born in Washtenaw County at Dexter’s Gordon Hall, she said.

This fact is personal inspiration, Ralph said, as she asks voters to mark their ballots for her. She said that during this forum, she expected to discuss urgent issues facing the county and city of Ann Arbor. As commissioner, she promised to confront scarcity and work toward an abundant future. She asked voters to visit her website to learn more about why they should vote for her.

Land Bank

Question: County commissioners recently voted to re-establish a county land bank authority, which could buy foreclosed properties to ward off blight and stabilize property values. Do you think this is a good idea? If so, how should it be funded? If not, what are your reasons for not supporting it?

Background: At their July 7, 2010 meeting, the Washtenaw County board of commissioners took a step toward re-establishing a county land bank that they had approved last year, but then dissolved in March of 2010. A land bank allows the government – through a separate land bank authority – to take temporary ownership of tax- or mortgage-foreclosed land while the county works to put it back into productive use. Though several commissioners expressed concerns over funding, at its Ways & Means Committee meeting on July 7, the board voted to approve a revised intergovernmental agreement that would govern the land bank authority, with dissent from commissioners Barbara Bergman and Leah Gunn. The expectation is that commissioners will take a final vote on both that agreement and a resolution to rescind its dissolution of the land bank at an upcoming board meeting, possibly on Aug. 4.

Conan Smith on the Land Bank

Smith said he’d been a long-term supporter of the land bank concept. When he worked at the Michigan Environmental Council in Lansing, he worked on land bank legislation with the man who helped author the legislation, Dan Kildee, who at the time was treasurer of Genesee County. A land bank can help in a variety of ways, Smith said – by keeping people in their homes who are on the verge of losing them, or to deal with blighted properties.

Funding doesn’t have to be a component of it, he said. There are lots of tools that the county can use through a land bank – such as holding title on property – that don’t require any dollars whatsoever, he said. If they do have to spend money to acquire or maintain properties or to provide certain kinds of service, one proposal Smith said he’s in favor of is to use a foreclosure interest capture, which could bring hundreds of thousands of dollars to bear on the problem.

LuAnne Bullington on the Land Bank

Bullington said she is also in favor of a land bank. At the last board of commissioners meeting, she noted, there had been an in-depth discussion of the land bank issue – she urged people to watch the meeting.

There’s a crisis in the county with tax and mortgage foreclosures, Bullington said. Normally, the county sees 11 tax foreclosures each year, she said, but two years ago, there were 102 foreclosures, with 45 going to auction. Last year, more than 103,000 properties were reported for forfeiture because of tax delinquencies – 16,607 of those faced foreclosure, and 555 will go to auction. “We need the land bank to deal with this,” she concluded.

Mike Fried on the Land Bank

Fried also strongly supports a land bank. He said there are over 2,100 properties in some state of foreclosure, according to RealtyTrac. He held up a publication that publishes legal notices, and said that one need only look at those pages to see how many foreclosures there are. The land bank is a way of helping preserve properties, and of helping avoid blight. It’s an important service.

There are several ways to provide funding, he said, one of which the treasurer has suggested. Once the authority is established, the board of commissioners can identify the best ways to fund it, he said.

Yousef Rabhi on the Land Bank

Rabhi echoed his opening statement, saying he believes in this community, having grown up here, and he believes in its strength. He is strongly in favor of a land bank. He said he attended the last board of commissioners meeting and was very happy to see the land bank pass. This is a matter of the community coming together to face off the foreclosure and economic struggle, he said, “and we can do it. And we can do it through a land bank.”

Rabhi noted that he works with the University of Michigan’s Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum. They’re working in a partnership with the Greening of Detroit project to renovate vacant lots for natural area habitat and water retention, among other things. In Washtenaw County, they can bring the community together through partnerships like this, he said. They can fund the land bank through partnerships and work to raise the economic value of our neighborhoods, to stave off more foreclosures from happening.

Alice Ralph on the Land Bank

Like the other candidates, Ralph characterized the land bank as a good idea. She noted that it had been dissolved by the commissioners, and said it’s a good thing that it’s being reestablished. A land bank is one of the tools to add to the county treasurer’s programs in foreclosure prevention, she said.

It’s also a tool to prepare the county for when it eventually surpasses these economic challenges, she said – adding that she has confidence that we’ll overcome them. And what the county ends up with after the economic pressures are resolved is something they can be proud of, she said. This is one tool they can use to transform the tragedy into something more optimistic.

Expanding the Road Commission

Are you in favor of increasing the Washtenaw County Road Commission from three to five commissioners? If so, why? How would you pay for the increased costs?

Background: Some commissioners have been advocating to increase the number of road commissioners, who are appointed by the county board of commissioners. There are currently three road commissioners: Doug Fuller, David Rutledge and Fred Veigel. At their July 7 meeting, the board held a public hearing on the issue, then ultimately passed a resolution to end the process of expansion, with commissioners Conan Smith and Jeff Irwin voting against it. Irwin said he’ll propose a resolution to expand the commission at the Aug. 4 meeting.

Mike Fried on Expanding the Road Commission

Fried said that so far, he’s heard no compelling argument to make the change. This discussion came up at the last board of commissioners meeting, he said, and speakers during public hearing at the meeting indicated they were satisfied with the road commission.

Several county commissioners also indicated that, especially recently, they have had very good service from the road commission, Fried said. So barring new information, he said, it’s one of those situations that “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

Yousef Rabhi on Expanding the Road Commission

Rabhi said he believes in democracy and that more members on the road commission would be a better service to the county. But given the current economy, he said, this isn’t the right time to make that switch. Perhaps in the future it could happen, when the economy improves.

A compelling argument for expansion is that it would provide greater democracy and representation from more areas of the county, Rabhi said, and that’s something he’s in favor of. But now, it’s not the right time.

Alice Ralph on Expanding the Road Commission

It’s true, Ralph said, that boards and commissions are one way the county can have active participation by citizens. The road commission, appointed by the county board of commissioners, is one of very few that pays a salary, she pointed out. That cost has prevented a full discussion of the issue about how to provide a really good and improved county road system, Ralph said.

She noted that at the recent board meeting, there were only three speakers that addressed the topic of the road commission during the public hearing. She said she doesn’t think that’s a fulsome discussion for citizens to judge whether expansion is a good idea or not. The cost would be rather small in the scope of the budget, she said, but she added that she understood the county doesn’t want to add costs. Ralph said she thinks there are other ways to improve the county road system.

LuAnne Bullington on Expanding the Road Commission

Asking whether to expand from three to five commissioners is the wrong question, Bullington said. And the board of commissioners has already voted to keep the number at three. She said that if the county had received the money that had been turned down by the Republican-controlled state senate – who refused to pay the 20% that the federal government required to get money for repairing bridges or roads – we wouldn’t be talking about the number of road commissioners, she said. [For road projects, the federal government pays for 80% and requires states to come up with the remaining 20% in matching funds. Michigan has been unable to come up with those matching dollars, which some legislators want to raise by increasing the gas tax.]

Bridges are closed and the county has turned 100 miles of local roads to gravel, Bullington said, because of a lack of funding to pave them. Increasing the number of road commissioners isn’t going to make that much of a difference. We need a way to look at funding to repair the county’s roads and bridges, she said.

Conan Smith on Expanding the Road Commission

Washtenaw County has always prided itself on the diversity of its transportation network, Smith said, whether that’s commuting to work by bike or walking, taking public transit, or driving in cars. The transportation network is naturally complex, he said and it requires diversity that can address multiple needs. The road commission is the primary funding entity for transportation in the county, with a budget of $40 million per year. The cost of expanding the number of commissioners could be as little as $21,000 – road commissioners earn $11,000 each – or even zero, if they captured that increase in members from the current salary structure, he said. [One proposal would be to take the existing total compensation for three members, and divide it among five.]

He said that more important to him is that the county diversify the representation on the road commission. There should be voices for land use and transit participating in the decision-making about the development of the county’s transportation network, he said. If Ann Arbor is going to survive as an urban community, it needs to stop “sprawling out into the hinterlands,” Smith said, and make sure that development happens in the city. “Transportation is a critical component to that issue,” he concluded.

Police Services

The county sheriff’s department provides police services to the townships, through deputy road patrols. How should this cost be shared between the county and the townships?

Background: The county provides police services to local municipalities that contract with the sheriff’s department for deputy patrols. The cost of those patrols has been a matter of dispute for several years, with county officials arguing that the amount charged doesn’t cover the true cost of that service, and some township officials saying that the cost is too high. Three townships – Augusta, Salem and Ypsilanti – sued the county over the issue in 2006. [Most recent Chronicle coverage: "County Settles Lawsuit with Salem Township"]

Conan Smith on Police Services

Smith said that protecting people is the foremost responsibility of the county – they have an obligation to ensure that everyone lives in a safe and stable neighborhood. Unfortunately, the cost for providing that service is ever increasing, he said, due to wages, the growing population in the townships, and inflation of health care costs. If we want to equitably distribute those costs, we need to think about communities “that are biting twice at the apple.” Ann Arbor is already supporting public safety in the city – should they also be supporting public safety throughout the county? It’s a balance, he said. If they lose safety in the townships, then it’s likely they’ll lose some quality of life in Ann Arbor too.

Striking a balance is tough, Smith said. What needs to sit at the forefront of their minds is that every resident, urban or rural, deserves a safe environment.

Yousef Rabhi on Police Services

At the end of the day, Rabhi said, safety is the biggest issue. They need to make sure that everyone has the police services they need. The issue is whether taxpayers in cities like Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti should be paying for their police department as well as the sheriff’s department, and whether the townships should be bearing some of the burden of that.

Ann Arbor taxpayers should only have to pay for the services they get, Rabhi said, adding that he still needed to do more research on the topic. He’s met with commissioners who represent Ann Arbor, as well as the sheriff, and he sees both sides of the issue. The sheriff has outlined very strongly that Ann Arbor taxpayers are still getting their money’s worth through the county jail, Rabhi said, since the county provides jail services to Ann Arbor police at no charge. However, if Ann Arbor taxpayers are paying double, he added, then that encourages suburbanization and it devalues the urban core.

Alice Ralph on Police Services

The sheriff’s department has been transforming itself since Jerry Clayton was elected, Ralph said. She’s very impressed with the way he approaches his responsibilities for keeping the county safe. He looks at the complexity of issues, and many of his efforts are coordinating with human service programs such as mental health and drug diversion programs.

That’s not to say that it doesn’t cost money, Ralph added. It’s similar to the state – Michigan’s prison system is the biggest expenditure in the state budget, she noted. The county also has a large expenditure for personnel in the sheriff’s department. Sheriff Clayton is addressing the idea of inequities, she said, and he’s coming up with a way of calculating the cost of police services to make it just.

LuAnne Bullington on Police Services

Bullington said she’s been following Jerry Clayton’s career and has tremendous respect for him. He’s taken a very contentious issue and “calmed it way down.” One problem they’ve had – and it’s not just in Ann Arbor – is that some communities are paying more for police services, and some are paying less, she said. Before Clayton took over the department, the last she’d heard was that some communities were paying 50% less than they should, while some were paying 50% more. Clayton has brought it into a better balance, she said.

Bullington said she’d like to see the sheriff keep working with municipalities on this issue. Maybe with this next contract [for police services with the townships], he can keep making changes until each jurisdiction is paying their own fair share.

Mike Fried on Police Services

Fried said he believes that the townships have an obligation to pay a reasonable cost for police services provided by the county. But what happens in the townships affects the cities, and vice versa, he said. It’s unfortunate that before Clayton took over, hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent in legal fees to try to argue this issue over cost. It’s unfortunate that this couldn’t be mediated. Fried said he thinks the sheriff’s approach has calmed down the situation and that the county and the townships can reach a reasonable, agreed-upon payment for these services.

County Jail Costs

Question: Now that the addition on the county jail is complete, how should its operation be funded for the long term?

Background: The county has built a 112-bed expansion to the jail, located off of Hogback Road near the intersection with Washtenaw. At a March 18, 2010 working session of the board, sheriff Jerry Clayton gave a detailed report on the expansion. Bob Guenzel, the county administrator at the time, told the board that the additional staff needed to operate the jail would increase the corrections budget by $1.478 million this year and $3.248 million in 2011. He told commissioners that there were sufficient funds to cover those costs, but that in 2012 and 2013, the administration was projecting a two-year shortfall for the corrections division of nearly $2 million.

Alice Ralph on County Jail Costs

Ralph pointed out that the county doesn’t have many choices for mandated services. They do have to find the funds to operate the jail. It’s a wonderful jail that will require some extra personnel, especially given the approach that the sheriff is taking, with integrated services for prevention and rehabilitation, and the goal of reducing the recidivism rate.

Ralph said she’s not going to second guess the current board of commissioners. They’ll have to find the funds within the budget they’ve approved, she said, because most of those jail employees will be hired before the end of this budget year.

LuAnne Bullington on County Jail Costs

Bullington said she’s had concerns with the jail and funding for it for quite some time. Her understanding is that the cost of staffing isn’t yet in the budget. The county administrator has said that this year’s budget is fine, Bullington said, but next year they’ll face a deficit, not including the jail costs.

Her issue is who are they putting in the jail – is it mainly housing homeless people? Bullington reported that Jeff Irwin has said publicly that when he toured the jail, he felt that 90% of the people shouldn’t have been there – they should have been in other programs. The county has the Delonis shelter, she said, which had 50 beds until that number was doubled to 100. There are 1,500 people in the city of Ann Arbor who are homeless, and 3,500 countywide, she said. Maybe they’re using the jail as an alternative to the shelter, she said, and there might be cheaper ways of housing the homeless, rather than putting them in jail.

Mike Fried on County Jail Costs

The jail is a county requirement, Fried said, and is primarily funded through the general fund. However, the sheriff has been active in seeking external funding through federal grants and other avenues, which may alleviate some of those issues, he said.

The sheriff has a vision for the county and for that [criminal justice] campus – the goal, of course, is that they don’t need so much jail space, Fried added – but now they need to fund it adequately. The worst thing would be to not properly staff it, since that would result in overtime or lawsuits, he said, and would be extremely costly to the county.

Yousef Rabhi on County Jail Costs

Rabhi said this is a very important issue for him. He said that as he’d stated in his opening remarks, he’s running because he thinks the money is there for the government to run. When it comes to the jail, the sheriff has been very proactive in promoting alternative programming, like the community work program. As an employee at the University of Michigan, Rabhi said, he’s had experience with people in the community work program coming to help them. These are non-violent offenders, he noted – people who might be in jail because of drug possession charges or drunk driving charges, and who don’t really belong behind bars. They do community service and add value to the community’s assets, he said. And they don’t cost the taxpayers as much as when they’re sitting in a jail cell.

The county can promote programs like this, Rabhi said. This is where they’re going to find funding to move the county into a sustainable and progressive future.

Conan Smith on County Jail Costs

The other candidates at the forum have said what will need to happen, Smith noted – it’s a mandated service, and it must be in the budget. The board and sheriff are focused on those alternative funding sources, he said, particularly grants and service dollars. They’re also looking very keenly at operations across the sheriff’s department, to see where there can be savings – in areas like reduced contracts, cross training, and perhaps the deputy road patrols.

They’ll find a way to fund the operation, Smith said. But more importantly, they need to be tuned in to how big the jail needs to be, in term of its operation. They’ve built the full infrastructure, but they don’t necessarily need to staff it at its full capacity, if that’s not necessary. So some of the solution is in cost containment, he said, while some is in alternative revenues. But at the end of the day, he said, it’s a mandate.

Meeting Basic Human Needs

Question: The continuing recession is hard on everyone, especially the unemployed and underemployed. Do you think the county is doing an adequate job of meeting the basic human needs of its citizens, in the areas of housing, health (mental and physical), food service and transportation? If not, what more should be done?

Background: The county provides funds to a range of human services programs and nonprofits, but last year the board decreased that funding as part of its overall efforts to address a projected $30 million, two-year budget deficit in 2010 and 2011. Several elected county officials have backed the idea of a millage dedicated to funding human services, but the board to date hasn’t acted on that proposal. [Chronicle coverage: "County Millage for Human Services?"]

Conan Smith on Meeting Basic Human Needs

No, Smith said. The bottom line is the county is not doing an adequate job, he said, because the economy has transformed in such a short time. Alongside that, there’s a structural revenue problem, due to the way the state finances local governments. The county doesn’t have the resources to address these complex problems, which are so painful to see on a day-to-day basis, he said.

The board needs to look carefully at how they prioritize funding in the next budget cycle, Smith said. He is proud that this year the board adopted a mission for the budget that he proposed, which put the stabilization of neighborhoods and families first and foremost. The second component of that budget was to make sure they looked at long-term prosperity, so that they’ll have funds coming in from those stable neighborhoods to continue to provide services. This is an ongoing problem, he concluded, and they haven’t met the needs of it yet.

LuAnne Bullington on Meeting Basic Human Needs

The state has cut back on funding for a lot of these services, Bullington said, and the need is great. In previous years, the county has seen foreclosures due to predatory loans and redlining. Now, people are losing their home because they’ve lost their jobs, she said – there’s an influx of middle class people needing the county’s help. But there isn’t the money or the will, it seems, to look at this issue and help, she said.

Bullington said this area offers three types of housing: Ozone House, which she said provides transitional housing [for youth]; SOS Community Services, which provides crisis housing, and the Delonis Center, which is a shelter. Delonis is taking care of single adults at night only for three months, she said, adding that then they can’t go back for a year. “This is a crisis and we need to think outside the box to solve it.”

Mike Fried on Meeting Basic Human Needs

Fried said the need is very great in all these areas. The county should take the lead in working with the nonprofit community to obtain additional resources, and to improve efficiency and collaboration among the nonprofits, to start meeting these needs.

Citizens of this county should feel an obligation to assist others, he said. Businesses, nonprofits, and the county board should rally the people of this county to see that these needs are met, he said, because they’re tremendously great.

Yousef Rabhi on Meeting Basic Human Needs

Rabhi said the county is not doing enough – there’s always more that could be done. Government is the place where people come together, he said, where we realize that our futures are common. As a commissioner, Rabhi said he would engage the citizens of this community in tackling this task to improve the economy, address homelessness and create jobs. It’s something that everyone can work on together.

Regional transportation is essential to address these issues, Rabhi said. The county health plan is another essential service. There’s a diversity of knowledge and backgrounds in this community that can be tapped for this effort. “The citizens are the greatest consultants that the government could ever hire,” he said. “The county needs to engage that.”

Alice Ralph on Meeting Basic Human Needs

“The question is almost as broad as saying, ‘Can we afford to govern?’” Ralph said. There are some things that the private sector is really good at, she said, and as a government, the county needs to make sure to provide the civic infrastructure that supports interaction between the public and private sectors.

One way to refocus is to reset priorities, Ralph said. The board of commissioners has seven priorities, which Ralph described as rather broad. They need to focus those priorities. They need to ask not just how much money to spend, but how effective those programs are and how much progress they’ll make toward solving problems that the government can take care of.

Commuter Rail

Question: What’s the status of plans for commuter rail to the north and east of Ann Arbor, and are you supportive of these plans?

Background: There are two major efforts to bring commuter rail through Ann Arbor: 1) an east/west line between Ann Arbor and Detroit, which is being coordinated by the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments (SEMCOG); and 2) the north/south Washtenaw and Livingston Line, known as WALLY. Neither effort has secured sufficient funding to ensure that the projects will move forward.

The east/west line would be served by the Fuller Road Station, a joint city of Ann Arbor/University of Michigan effort that’s initially designed as a parking structure and bus depot, with the hope by city officials that a train station is eventually built there as well. The project has been controversial because it’s proposed to be built on land that’s designated as parkland. [Chronicle coverage: "PAC Softens Stance on Fuller Road Station" and "Park Commission Asks for Transparency"]

Mike Fried on Commuter Rail

Fried said the community is not quite sure of the status. The east/west rail to Detroit is up in the air, pending federal funding. WALLY [the north/south rail between Ann Arbor and Howell] is a little more set, he said, but clearly, substantial funding is needed.

He’s strongly supportive of regional transportation and said that tremendous strides can be made, especially going east to the airport and the Detroit Region Aerotropolis by Willow Run Airport. The other area that’s important is transportation within the county, he said, which allows people of all means to get to work, shopping and recreation.

Yousef Rabhi on Commuter Rail

The status of the east/west rail is up in air, Yousef said, blocked at the federal level. They need to work with SEMCOG – the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments – to get funding for these regional mass transit programs, he said. Regional mass transit is an essential feature of this community’s future, and we need to be investing in the sustainability and the social equity of the county and the region, he said.

Noting that he has a background in urban and regional planning, Rabhi said that mass transit can’t just happen in Ann Arbor or Ypsilanti. It needs to happen on a regional level. There needs to be someone on the county board who’s dedicated to regional mass transit, he said. “I am definitely dedicated to regional mass transit.” There are big shoes to fill, he added, saying that Jeff Irwin is stepping down and Irwin was a champion for that. The county needs someone who works every day on this issue, he said, and who asks: “What can we do to improve the transportation corridors throughout our county and throughout our region?”

Alice Ralph on Commuter Rail

Ralph said she thinks Jeff Irwin is trying to step up as opposed to step down, but she agreed that he has been a staunch advocate for transit. She noted that Fried had mentioned the aerotropolis project, which she described as a larger version of what’s happening in Ann Arbor. This is mostly a city issue, she said – the county hasn’t been directly involved, as far as she knows.

One of the issues now is the Fuller Road Station, which Ralph described as “currently a garage planned to be built on city parkland.” It reminds her of the aerotropolis project – on the aerotropolis website, she said, they show pictures of farmland being converted to something else [commercial and industrial uses]. It’s almost a new version of sprawl, Ralph said. She thinks the community should look at this as a balanced transportation system, so that they don’t just use one approach to solve every problem.

LuAnne Bullington on Commuter Rail

Bullington said she’s been involved with transportation issues for decades. She’s served on the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority’s Local Advisory Council as both an executive member and a general member. She attends AATA meetings, and goes to Lansing to advocate for transportation. But there isn’t money to fund the trains, she said, and it breaks her heart. She doesn’t drive and said she’d use the trains, but there’s no dedicated funding for it.

The east/west train from Detroit to Chicago will be getting some funding for an express train. But for commuter rail, there isn’t any money for it – it needs $35 million a year just to operate, she said. Bullington said she attended a public meeting when a SEMCOG official came to Ann Arbor and asked the AATA if they had $35 million to pay for commuter rail. The north/south WALLY project is tied up because there are three towns where there need to be stations, she said, and the towns have repeatedly said they won’t fund the stations. In 2006, SEMCOG said there wasn’t enough ridership to support it, she noted, and since then, the region has lost population and revenues. She again stated that it breaks her heart, but there’s no funding for commuter rail.

Conan Smith on Commuter Rail

Smith said he looks at metropolitan Detroit as the future of not just Ann Arbor and Washtenaw County, but for Michigan as a whole. Nothing is more essential to long-term prosperity in this regard than ensuring that there’s a comprehensive mass transportation system that stretches from the core city of Detroit to the best university town in the nation.

If this region is going to grow economically, they need to connect the excellent jobs here to the excellent workers in metro Detroit, Smith said. If they’re going to protect the environment and water resources, they’ve got to get some cars off the road – and that means mass transit. And if they want to enhance social equity in the community, he said, they need to make sure that people have more dollars in their pockets to provide a better quality of life. We waste so much money putting dollars into our cars, he said. It’s crucial to figure out how to get these transit systems going, he added, especially along the east/west corridor. As far as he’s concerned, there’s no higher priority.

Protecting Water Resources

Question: Michigan’s Great Lakes, small lakes, rivers and wetlands are among our most treasured and envied assets. Do you foresee any problems in our water resources in Washtenaw County? If so, what should be done?

Conan Smith on Protecting Water Resources

Smith said the greatest threat to the environment is the transportation system. Without a doubt, the number of cars that are being put on the road, the way the transportation system drives sprawl out from the cities into natural areas and rural areas – those are tremendous threats to the region’s wetlands, rivers, and great natural features that protect the aquifers, he said. If these areas are developed, the region’s water quality will drop precipitously, he said. So they absolutely have to put a high priority on addressing the transportation network, to ensure that it’s taking care of the environment as well.

Smith said that the county has one of the best natural areas preservation programs in the nation. Last year it won a NACO (National Association of Counties) award for being the most innovative program, he said. The millage that funds the program is up for renewal, after 10 years, he noted – it’s expected to go before voters on the November ballot. He said he hopes everyone will put their dollars toward it, because it’s doing an outstanding job of protecting the county’s water resources.

Yousef Rabhi on Protecting Water Resources

Rabhi said that this is something that affects the community’s quality of life, its environment, and its sustainability. We need to be improving water quality in all their waterways, he said. We need to look at ways to reduce runoff in urban areas, because runoff carries a heavy load of water and heavy loads of toxins, which are very detrimental to waterways and the creatures who live there.

Again noting his background in urban and regional planning, Rabhi said that watershed issues are regional issues. We need to look at it on a countywide and regional basis. He said he also has four years of experience in natural areas restoration. He knows the on-the-ground details of natural areas management, water management and water retention. He also cited 13 years of working with the Burr Park Wet Meadow Project, which he said is devoted to making sure urban runoff is no longer an issue for the Mallets Creek watershed. Rabhi concluded by saying he has the experience to get the job done and to look to the future.

Alice Ralph on Protecting Water Resources

“Water and trouble know no boundaries,” Ralph said, “and I hope that solutions don’t either.” Transportation and energy use can have heavy impacts on our water systems. She said she’s been working for several years on a greenway in Ann Arbor, and they’ve had very little government support. She’s noticed that the county has several programs that help establish open space, greenways, and natural areas. It make a lot of sense to have a systematic approach to keeping our water clean and available, she said.

Water will probably be more important in the long run than oil, Ralph said. We can see the tough time we’re having eliminating oil dependency, she noted – we can’t do that with water, because we need it to live. We’ll have a better environment to live in if we address these water issues.

LuAnne Bullington on Protecting Water Resources

One of the roles of the county government is to oversee inspectors, Bullington said. The county sends inspectors to restaurants to make sure they’re safe. The county also inspects lakes and wells, she said. They’ve had an issue with the Pall plume, and she’d like to see more work done with that. People’s wells have been contaminated, she said – it’s an important issue. [Bullington was referring to an underground plume of dioxane generated from Pall Corp. manufacturing facilities in Scio Township. For more information, see the county's Coalition for Action on Remediation of Dioxane website.]

Bullington then looped back to the topic of transportation. Mass transportation is important, she said, but it has to be paid for. One possibility is to put a regional transportation millage on the ballot, but that means they’d be paying to bring people from Detroit to Ann Arbor, she said. Before we do that, we need to take care of mass transit in Ann Arbor, then expand to the county before talking about very expensive trains, which she said she loves.

Mike Fried on Protecting Water Resources

Fried said the tragedy of the BP well in the Gulf has brought attention to the importance of water and how critical the whole Great Lakes area is – it’s the largest area of fresh water in the world. The county needs to protect its waterways, he said, and we’re fortunate that both the county parks department and the water resources commissioner are doing outstanding jobs and are aware of these issues.

He said he agreed with everything that other candidates have said about the importance of eliminating runoff, and conserving and maintaining water resources.

Closing Statements

Each candidate had two minutes to make some closing remarks.

Alice Ralph’s Closing Statement

Ralph thanked the audience for listening and said she wanted to return to Katharine Dexter McCormick and her most remarkable achievement, which was included in Fred Kaplan’s book, “1959: The Year that Everything Changed.” After women got the right to vote, McCormick devoted herself to developing the birth control pill, which is 50 years old this year, Ralph noted. McCormick started with the belief that the vote was not enough. Her commitment yielded an otherwise undreamed-of self determination for women and families around the world, Ralph said. Who could top that these days?

Ralph said she doesn’t expect to change everything, but she has been working with other citizens to change a few things. In 2006, she ran for city council in a closely contested primary. [That was a Ward 3 contest featuring Jeff Meyers and  Stephen Kunselman in addition to Ralph, which was won by Kunselman.] Now, she said, District 11 voters have the chance to get the kind of imaginative and mature leadership that her earlier supporters said they saw in her. New territory is ahead. We are pressed to change ourselves and government in preparation for an abundant future like none foretold, Ralph said.

We don’t have the advantage of vast fortunes, like Mrs. McCormick had – so beyond raw efficiency, we need to focus on the most effective use of funds and other resources, Ralph said. Just voting is not enough – informed citizen participation will make all the difference. With resilient policy and attention to core responsibilities, Ralph said, we can work together for local change that is true to shared priorities. As a county commissioner, Ralph said she will confront scarcity and work toward an abundant future on the other side of crisis. She urged voters to visit her website and learn more about why they should vote for her.

Mike Fried’s Closing Statement

Fried began by thanking the League of Women Voters. He said he wants to be a county commissioner because he cares about residents and cares about the county. His goal is to make the county an even better place to live in. He said he has the skills and experience to help solve problems that the county is facing. He noted that he’s the only candidate who has real world experience working for a county.

Fried managed finance and budgets, personnel, workflow, computer systems, was a liaison to a county board, and has experience serving on a number of state councils and organizations. He said he was instrumental in bringing about initiatives and victim assistance in criminal justice computer systems and in mental health diversion. He now serves on a number of nonprofit boards for agencies that directly help citizens in the county.

Fried said he’s proudest of the times when he’s brought together different groups to work together for a common goal, and that he’ll do the same as county commissioner. He’ll work to bring stakeholders together to maintain quality, to keep the county fiscally sound, to help those in need and to plan for the future. But he said he needs voters’ support on Aug. 3 to make it happen. Together, he said, we can build a future of balanced budgets, good jobs, accessible parks, safe streets, efficient transportation and quality services. He asked voters to visit his website or just Google his name.

Yousef Rabhi’s Closing Statement

Rabhi also thanked viewers for listening, and thanked the league. He said he was born in Ypsilanti and grew up in Ann Arbor. He knows what it’s like to live in this community, to see the strength of the people and community bonds. He said he knows we can lift ourselves past this economic time, and knows they can balance the budget. Governmental efficiency is the way to go, he said. We can work across all levels of government, and can build partnerships. We can work for energy efficiency and water conservation and alternative programming for the jail to save money.

But beyond the current budget situation, we need to look to the future, he said. We need to look to a sustainable county. That doesn’t just mean environmental health. It means social equity and economic resilience. It means a county that invests in local businesses and values human rights. A county that takes environmental issues seriously and invests in renewable energy and runoff prevention. Rabhi urged viewers to vote for him on election day, because together, he said, we can make a difference in our county.

LuAnne Bullington’s Closing Statement

Bullington said she was asking for voters’ support because she believes in a deep commitment and service to Ann Arbor and Washtenaw County. As a prosperous community, she said, we have the strength and the responsibility to show empathy and compassion to at-risk populations and to people who are adversely affected by this economic crisis. She said she demonstrates this service by donating her time, efforts and skills to a wide range of groups that implement solutions to these problems. Churches can’t do it, and nonprofits can’t do it – government needs to step up and help too, she said. A lot of churches and nonprofits are overburdened trying to take on these things, she said.

Bullington said she was recognized by the Washtenaw Youth Mentoring Coalition as a 2009 Washtenaw “super mentor.” She has served or volunteered with dozens of different groups involving transportation, housing, and the environment. She has held several leadership roles with the Ann Arbor City Democrats, is a member of the Ann Arbor NAACP, and a volunteer with the Ann Arbor Center for Independent Living. She was elected the Ward 3 precinct delegate. She was a former executive member of the AATA’s Local Advisory Council and attends their meetings. She’s a committee member for the Religious Coalition for the Homeless, and an advocate for Camp Take Notice and other homeless populations. She said the community doesn’t have enough housing and needs to think outside the box. She concluded by thanking the audience and the league.

Conan Smith’s Closing Statement

Smith said he was grateful to have had the opportunity to serve on the county board for the past six years and he hopes he’s earned support for continued service. He said he’s always put equity and social justice at the forefront. Washtenaw County deserves to have communities where you don’t have to be rich to enjoy clean air or clean water, he said, and where you won’t have to be overburdened by the cost of housing or transportation. Where you don’t have to feel that you or your family are at risk every time a child gets a cold or an adult senior faces a need for medication.

In Washtenaw, he said, they’ve always taken those priorities very seriously and tried to design a government that reflects those values and prioritizes them through the budget process. On his first term on the board, he said he learned a lot. His second term, he had a single stellar accomplishment: Preventing discrimination of Muslims at county pools. This past term, he led the budget process and through that, they were able to design a system that allowed the county to present an equitable front for all citizens, Smith said.

The community has some very serious challenges ahead, Smith said. Transportation has been the most frustrating issue for him – he said he tried collaboration through the planning advisory board, and tried to expand the road commission, but it’s still a struggle. The county also needs a metropolitan police force to address the sheriff’s road patrol issue, Smith said. And they desperately need a human services millage to address those issues as well, he said. As he moves into the next term, Smith said he hopes he has voters’ support, adding that he’ll be driving forward on these issues.

Pop the bulb, and feed pieces to candidates. Vote for those who will eat the glass.

For the average citizen, the voting conundrum is born of finite time and imperfect information: You don’t have the time or resources to actually meet and research each candidate yourself, and thus must rely on second-hand research of dubious provenance. ["Uncle Ted says the incumbent's mother was a half-goat demi-god from beyond the stars!"]

The traditional solution is a voter guide: Your local paper, or community-of-faith, or pregnancy-termination-opinion-group, or storefront outpost of a deep-pocked national political action committee, or unqualified demagogue runs off a tidy little list of who you should vote for, occasionally offering highly abridged bulleted summaries of why those candidates are Right for You, and how the other guys are Basically a Bunch of Crooked Fools.

It doesn’t take much cynicism to see a voter guide is little more than a marketing piece that a special interest group publishes to magnify its vote by reproducing its opinions in many concerned, trusting citizens. Viewed with properly jaundiced eyes, it begins to seem like an electorate that is well-informed only by voter guides is worse than one that isn’t really all that well-informed at all.

As such, you may be better off relying on a heuristic of your own making. My preferred rule of thumb is this: Always vote for the glass-eating clown.

In my capacity as the business columnist for the Current, I spent some time interviewing extreme clowns and burlesque dancers. These are folks whose vocations, if not careers, revolve around eating glass and roadkill, swallowing swords, or sliding spinning drill bits up their noses – a skill called “blockheading.”

I bring up these specific bits – rather than the slightly more spectacular stage business, such as sleights of hand, mentalism, and the ladies removing their tops – because these aren’t tricks: the power drill is a factory-standard Makita; the swords are solid steel and ungimmicked; the roadkill skunk is just that, not a cleverly taxidermied bag filled with cooked pork, red Jell-o, and canned fruit cocktail.

One geek explained his method for testing the edibility of found meat based on the texture of the carcass’s skin and structural integrity of its hide, then assured me that “basically it’s the same risk as eating raw fish, like sushi. That’s why we try and deal with mostly sashimi-grade roadkill.” [Incidentally, collecting and eating roadkill – cooked, raw, privately, or on stage – is entirely legal in the state of Michigan, provided one has a small-game license, which these freaks did; circus folk may be transgressive, but they aren't scofflaws.]

As a young boy – a chubby, loud-mouthed, unpopular boy – I had a flair for sleight of hand and a passion for technique; I knew how sword-swallowers trained to suppress their gag reflexes, how blockheads spelunked and mentally mapped the crevices of their sinuses, how fire-eaters angled their heads so that the heat of the flame was channeled up and away from their tender mouths.

But glass-eating? That was a better kept secret when I was in the throes of my nerdery; the rational mind insists it is either sleight-of-hand – exchanging the shards for hard candies – or that the glass itself is gimmicked.

Then I met Ann Arbor’s Chuck Rock, at that time performing under the name Preposterous the Clown. During an interview, Rock agreed to eat a light bulb I’d brought from home. After popping the bulb, he selected a piece the size of a half-dollar. Dusting the white powder from the inside, he noted, “This stuff is phosphorus. It’s bad for you, and tastes bad.”

He placed the glass between his molars and began grinding. On my recording of the interview, this sounds like a truck rolling over a gravel; the racket drowns out some of my questions.

Blood immediately welled up between Rock’s teeth.

“I’m, um, seeing some blood. Is that normal?”

He couldn’t hear me over the crunching glass, so I asked again. Rock nodded.

“Yeah, that’s normal. I’m eating glass. You might expect a little bit of blood.”

Earlier, Rock had explained that the act required a “tactful chewing” technique, but that in no way detracted from my terror and awe: He really eats glass. “It makes your dookies twinkle, man. It’s like a pearlized paint job.”

As I interviewed clowns and geeks, blockheads and burlesquers, what kept striking me wasn’t simply their erudition – the depth and detail of anatomical knowledge, specifically – but their abiding faith in rationality.

Rita Riggs, a young local sword-swallower and burlesque dancer, described the point where she’d developed the physical capacity needed to swallow a sword, but couldn’t quite get her head around the idea of doing it. Having mastered juggling, some rudimentary blockheading, and a hoop-dancing striptease, she was still “having a hard time with it conceptually,” because it required slowly and carefully sliding a sharp piece of steel into her body.

Rock had described similar moments early in his glass-eating apprenticeship: he knew his craft, knew it was perfectly safe as long as he did it carefully, thoroughly, and so he pushed past self-preserving fear and ate glass. Rock, Riggs, the vast menagerie of weird clowns, they don’t stand by the “courage of their convictions” and vote against extending welfare benefits, or for sending teenagers to kill and die in the wilderness; they stand by their hard-earned education and gut themselves on stage for crinkled dollars and wild applause.

As a voter, as a citizen, this is what I want from my representatives: Human beings entirely willing to stake not just their reputations or their livelihoods, but their actual and immediate mortality on their confidence in human rationality, training, skill, and competence.

To my mind, any debate is incomplete unless each candidate is handed a 60-watt bulb and reminded to dust off the white powder before chewing; that stuff is phosphorus; it’s bad for you, and tastes bad.

About the writer: David Erik Nelson writes the business column for Current magazine. He’s a co-working colleague of The Ann Arbor Chronicle at the Workantile Exchange.